Miller's Daughter
by The Lady Sophrina
Summary: Once Upon A Time, slightly AU at first, very AU post Episode 8. What's the real story of the miller's daughter, and how does she fit into Storybrooke-and Mr. Gold's schemes? Chapter 16 is up! Magic is coming back to Storybrooke!
1. Chapter 1

Later, he could never remember exactly what had possessed him to approach the crying girl on the park bench. Probably, he admitted to himself, it was just his natural curiosity, his inclination to meddle in the affairs of others. It wasn't as though the sight was so unusual; in other towns, perhaps, but not in Storybrooke. Often as he made his rounds through town he saw sadness in the people around him: the young teacher, Miss Blanchard, gazing pensively into space; Hopper, the psychiatrist, shuffling with his head down, his Dalmatian trotting alongside; the town handyman, Marco, looking wistfully in the direction of the schoolyard as the children played. He had never felt the need or the desire to approach any of them, to inquire as to where their sadness lay and if there was any way he could help to alleviate it—for a price, of course.

But something about the girl on the bench drew him. As he got closer to her he recognized her. She was the Miller girl, the daughter of the town's lone insurance salesman. He had seen her around town through the years, but their paths had never crossed before. He knew almost nothing about the girl, not even her exact age, though he knew she had to be in her late teens by now. The one thing he knew about her was the one thing he knew about every citizen of Storybrooke—her name.

"Amy?" he said softly.

The girl jumped and looked around, startled. She didn't relax as she realized who he was; her eyes widened and her expression became, if anything, even more apprehensive. He supposed he couldn't blame her. After all, Mr. Gold was the closest thing Storybrooke had to a boogeyman.

Not that he was fearsome-looking. He was on the short side for a man and thin, and walked with a slight limp that required a cane, courtesy of an accident in his boyhood (_what kind of accident? exactly how old was I?_) He was also without a doubt the best-dressed man in Storybrooke, with a seemingly endless selection of perfectly tailored suits, each with their own set of perfectly matching accessories. Even the cane he carried seemed to be an elegant accompaniment to his wardrobe. His medium brown hair was just beginning to gray slightly at the temples, and oddly was shot through with streaks of pure gold (it was rumored about that Mr. Gold went into Boston occasionally and got highlights at an ultra-expensive, ultra-discreet salon. The main propagators of the rumor were women who envied the flawless color job. Had he cared, he could have told them it was 100 percent natural.) What was no secret was that he went for a manicure every two weeks like clockwork, and as a result had hands as slender and elegant as the rest of him, with long, slim fingers ending in perfectly trimmed and buffed nails.

Mr. Gold's face wasn't traditionally handsome; his features were too angular, his bone structure too sharp for that. Nonetheless it was an arresting face, and he was one of the blessed few who actually got better-looking with age. His most gracing feature was his large brown eyes, the precise shade of milk chocolate. His eyes were beautiful, or would have been had there been any warmth in them.

No, it wasn't his looks that frightened the people of Storybrooke. It was the two things he had that very few others in the town did: money and power. He had more money than anyone in town, and more power than all but one—and he wasn't afraid to use either to achieve his ends. Nearly everyone in Storybrooke had been, or was, in his debt.

Including the father of the girl who sat before him. He and Miller had…done business…several times over the past couple of decades. Miller was one of those rare creatures with absolutely no scruples, something Gold rather admired in a man. Their ventures together had been most lucrative. They had never had anything other than a working relationship, though; even Joseph Miller wasn't eager to get chummy with Mr. Gold. Gold wasn't insulted by this. The man had to make a living after all. What was more, very few in Storybrooke knew his true nature, and most believed him to be the honest and decent businessman he appeared. It would be foolish to be openly friendly with the man most regarded as the town villain (although, Gold reflected, he and Joseph Miller weren't really so very different at all. Gold just made no secret of his ruthlessness.)

He barely remembered Miller's wife, a quietly pretty, painfully shy young woman. Grace, her name had been. He didn't think he had ever heard her say two words. She had died…he concentrated…years and years ago, when the girl before him was very small. Or had she actually died giving birth to the girl? Yes, that was it. Some sort of freak accident during childbirth…a hemorrhage, an aneurysm, something of that nature. Tragic, very tragic. The baby had been the couple's first child, and Miller had never remarried. He had raised his daughter as a single father, in a modest ranch-style house in Storybrooke's one subdivision. The Millers weren't on the same financial wavelength as Gold or the mayor, Regina Mills, but by Storybrooke standards they were quite comfortable.

"Amy," he repeated. "Are you all right, dear?"

The girl eyed him warily, but when she spoke her words were polite. "Hello, Mr. Gold." Then, in a breathless rush, "Did my father send you to find me?"

Gold shook his head slowly. "No, dear." Hmmm, he thought, just what was going on here? This could be very interesting. "I was just out for a stroll, and saw you sitting here, and…well, you look rather upset. Is everything all right?"

Oddly, the girl looked rather disappointed at the news that Gold was not here as an emissary from her father. Then she did another odd thing: she shook her head slightly and gave a small, bitter smile.

"I should've known," she muttered to herself. Then to him, "I'm sorry, Mr. Gold. Yes, I'm all right, thank you. Everything is fine." He might have believed her if she hadn't burst into fresh tears at the word _fine._

"Mind if I sit down?" Gold asked. Amy nodded, hiccupping. He eased himself onto the bench beside her, maybe a bit closer than he really needed to but not touching her, and offered her a handkerchief.

She looked at the black silk square and shook her head. "Thanks, but no. It's too nice to get tears and snot—um, mucus all over. I have Kleenex." She held up a crumpled ball of tissue before using it to wipe tears from her eyes.

He extended the handkerchief to her. "Really, I insist. I can afford dry-cleaning, you know." With a small smile she finally accepted it. He noted that she only lightly dabbed at her eyes with it, however.

"So, dear," he began, "what seems to be the trouble?"

She gave him a rather sharp look. He could read clearly in her face the desire to say _Mind your own business! _But then, out of respect for an elder, fear of the nefarious pawnbroker, or her need to unburden herself (he found himself hoping it was the last) she answered the question.

"I'm pregnant," she said simply.

He tried not to look startled. "Oh, I see," he said. That made sense. She was the right age for such a thing, and he knew she was unmarried. Joe Miller, who so prided himself on his public image, would not take kindly to the news of an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter. No wonder she was crying.

"Yep, the girl all her friends made fun of for being the last virgin in her high school is now with child," she continued, apparently so relieved to be getting it all out she paid no mind to what she was saying. "Not only that, but the father-to-be hopped the next Greyhound out of town after I told him. He was only here for the summer anyway, but he wasn't supposed to leave for a couple of weeks yet. He didn't leave a forwarding address, of course. And then—" her shoulders started to shake and fresh tears spurted from her eyes—"then my father found out."

For once Gold didn't know what to say. He made a sound that he hoped was commiserating, and debated whether to put an arm around her shoulders. Finally, he patted her on the hand.

Apparently she found some comfort in the small contact, because she turned to look him full in the face. It was then that he noticed the dark red mark on her cheekbone.

"I told them at the clinic not to leave any messages on the machine—I signed a _paper_ saying they were only to speak directly to me, and not to call the home number at all—but—Mr. Gold, he _yelled _at me! He said the most awful things; he said I was a whore, and he wished I had died with my mother…" she nearly choked on a sob.

Gold grimaced with distaste; fortunately, the girl was again wiping her eyes and didn't see. The grimace was not towards her in any event. It was for her father and his words. Gold was not a father himself, had never had any desire to be one, but he couldn't imagine hurling such vitriol at a frightened girl—much less his own flesh and blood. Apparently Joe Miller's lack of caring for other people extended to his personal life as well.

But not everyone was able to distance themselves from their emotions the way he could, he realized. It was possible that Miller had simply been very upset and spoken before he thought.

"I'm sure he didn't mean it, dear," he murmured soothingly. "Perhaps he just…let his anger get the better of him. Surely if you go home and talk things out with him, he'll calm down and be more…understanding of the situation."

"I can't go home," she said miserably. "After he said those things to me, he hit me. He'd never done that before either. Then he told me to get out, that he never wanted to see me again."

Gold felt a wave of pure disgust wash over him. As coldblooded as he was accused of being (and, truthfully, could be), he would never dream of striking a woman. A pregnant one, no less. He found physical violence to be most repugnant. There were much better ways of getting one's point across.

That wasn't what Amy Miller needed to hear right at the moment, however. So he repeated, "I'm sure he didn't mean it."

Once again she looked him square in the eye. Very few people in Storybrooke could bring themselves to do this, and he mentally saluted her. "He meant it," she said. "Mr. Gold, you don't understand. My father doesn't love me. He never has. I blew any chance I ever had with him just by being born."

Gold couldn't believe he'd gotten himself into this. He almost wished he had never approached the crying girl. But here he was, and he was going to follow through. As the townspeople said, once Gold made a decision he never backed down.

"Dear, that can't be true," he said gently. "I'm sure he loves you. You're his only child, the only thing he has left of your mother. Of course he loves you."

She shook her head. "That's just it. He can barely stand the sight of me for those exact reasons. I wasn't the boy I was supposed to be, and I killed my mother. In that order, I think.

"I told you he'd never hit me or shouted at me," she continued. "That's true, but…he's never hugged me, either, or told me that he loved me. At least not that I can remember. I don't remember a whole lot of my childhood, but I know that he was almost never there. As soon as he brought me home from the hospital, he hired Mrs. Woods—you know her, she owns the inn and the diner; her granddaughter Ruby is one of my best friends—to be our housekeeper and my nanny. She raised me herself until I was seven years old. Then my father said I was old enough to look after myself and he dismissed her. After that…" with a heroic effort she managed to keep from tearing up again…"after that I was on my own."

Several thoughts flashed through his mind at this little speech. _No, dear. Mrs. Woods may _run _the inn and the diner, but I'm the one who holds the note on both of them. _ And a deeper part of his mind mused, _isn't it funny that one barely out of her childhood remembers so little of it? It's almost as if…as if…_he couldn't seem to complete the thought, and shook his head slightly in frustration.

She misunderstood the head shake. "It's true," she insisted. "My father is not the man people think he is. You must know that, Mr. Gold. I know you and he have had some dealings over the years."

For a brief instant he could only gape at her. Quickly he composed himself. But he felt another wave of admiration at the girl's candor. She had done a foolish thing, but she herself was no fool. He was beginning to think that the fool in the equation was Joe Miller. What a stupid man, not to realize what a jewel of a daughter he had, unplanned pregnancy notwithstanding.

He chose his next words carefully. "Your father and I have had some business dealings from time to time," he acknowledged. "However, he never wanted to share any part of his personal life, and I respected that. But if I'd had any idea that he was mistreating you…"

"He wasn't. He didn't," she said. "Like I said, he was never abusive or anything. He always made sure I had food and clothing and all that. Hell, he even bought me a car when I turned sixteen. But…it was all for show, don't you see? He only did all of it because he had to, because people would have talked if he didn't. I've always understood that. He's always made it clear to me, even if he never came right out and said it." This time she couldn't stop the tears from flowing.

Impulsively he grasped her hand. She was too surprised to pull away. "Then he's a fool," he said just as impulsively. _What was he doing? _"I don't know you well, Amy, but I can tell you're the sort of girl that any man…any smart man…would be proud to have as a daughter. You obviously love your father, even after all these years, even after what he said and did to you today. And I don't believe for a minute that you're a…girl of loose virtue. You must have loved the young man, to…do what has to be done to make a baby."

She was still crying, but she smiled a bit as his words, at his gentlemanly euphemisms. "I did," she whispered. "At least, I thought I did. But now…"

"Now you realize that a man worth loving wouldn't have left you to deal with this on your own?" he concluded. She looked away, but he saw her tiny, almost imperceptible nod. "That's good. That tells me you're a wise young woman, Amy. Loyal and smart and loving…you could have made your father a happy man all these years, if only he weren't so blind. Perhaps he'll come to see that eventually.

"But for now I think you're right. It's best that you don't try to go home, at least not right away."

"I'm afraid to try," she said almost inaudibly.

"And I don't blame you for that. You have to stay somewhere, though."

She heaved a huge, gusty sigh, but her tears seemed to have abated for the moment.

"I was going to try to leave town," she admitted. "Go to Boston or somewhere. I don't have much money, though. I have a bank account, but my father's name is on it too. He told me he was going to close it. Even if his name weren't on it I'm sure he'd have found a way to do that. I have enough cash on me to get a room at the inn for a couple of nights, but after that…"

"I'm sure Mrs. Woods would be glad to let you stay on for free after that for a little while," he told her. _Especially if I had a little talk with her._ Not that that would be necessary, he thought. Mrs. Woods, known throughout town as "Granny", was well-known for sheltering lost lambs. It was one reason she had never been able to make a go of either of her business ventures.

The bottom line, though, was that Amy Miller must not leave Storybrooke. On the surface of it the idea of leaving seemed to be a sensible one, or would have been if the girl had had any resources. She could have made a fresh start elsewhere, far from the prying eyes and wagging tongues of the town. Certainly she could find more opportunities for herself in almost any other town, especially Boston. But the girl had no money, and most likely no friends on the outside to help her. More than that, something in his gut told him that if she were to leave Storybrooke, terrible things would happen. _Well, of course they would. She would end up homeless on the streets of Boston, maybe give birth to that baby in an alley. _Even as the thoughts flashed in his mind, though, he knew those weren't the sort of bad things he meant. If she even tried to leave town, something awful would befall her even before she left the city limits. Any time a citizen of Storybrooke tried to leave it, at least for good, it was that way. Outsiders could come and go—not that many did—but the actual townspeople were, for all practical purposes, stuck. Gold no longer questioned this. It was just one of the many oddities of the town. _And besides_, that deeper, almost subconscious part of him thought, _it wouldn't do to question these things. You don't want to upset…_Who? He felt the familiar frustration. He feared no one…did he? He forced his mind to return to the business at hand.

Her next words drove his admiration still higher, and planted the seed of an idea. "I couldn't do that," she said almost indignantly. "The inn is struggling as it is. I couldn't ask her to let me stay on for free indefinitely. I'd ask her to hire me on as a maid or something, but I know she can't afford that either. She and Ruby have to do everything at the inn and the diner themselves. If they had to hire on even one more person, they wouldn't be able to make ends meet."

"Then perhaps you would consider staying at my home for a while," he said.

She stared at him, speechless.

"As an employee," he rushed on. "Mrs. Woods may not be able to hire a maid, but I am. I have a girl coming in a couple of times a week now, that Ashley Boyd, but she's hopeless. Why, she dyed one of my favorite shirts pink the last time she did my laundry."

Amy couldn't stop the weak, watery giggle that escaped her. Ashley, too, was a good friend of hers. But she could imagine what kind of housekeeping Ashley would provide.

"No, I can't let you fire Ashley," she protested. "She needs the work. Since her stepmother kicked her out, she doesn't have anywhere to go, either."

He thought quickly. "I wouldn't fire Ashley," he said. "But you could be my live-in maid for the time being. She could do the heavy work that you shouldn't be doing in your condition, and you could help her with the lighter housekeeping…and the laundry, of course." She let out a real laugh as he gazed at her with his eyebrow raised and his lips quirked. "It would look better for a man of my position to have more than one maid. There's a nice little apartment on the lower west wing of my house. A good-sized bedroom, a full bathroom, even a kitchenette. It would be a good place for you to stay and…get your thoughts together. Think about what you're going to do."

"I've been doing the housework at home since I was little," she mused. He didn't think she realized she was speaking out loud. "The cooking, too."

"Perfect," he said. "I've been taking all my meals at the diner. Ruby and Mrs. Woods are excellent cooks, but I'm getting weary of short-order food."

She shot him a glance he could only describe as mischievous. "You mean Ashley hasn't been cooking for you?" she asked, the innocence in her tone belying her expression.

He grimaced. "After she set the kettle on fire," he said, "I decided to relieve her of that particular duty."

Amy, who a half-hour before had been ready to jump off the nearest bridge, burst out laughing. "All right, Mr. Gold," she said. "I'll come to work for you…if you'll answer a question for me."

That eyebrow rose again. "You can certainly ask, dear, but I can't guarantee you I'll answer."

"It's nothing earth-shattering," she assured him. "I just want to know…why are you doing this for me? Forgive me, but you aren't exactly known for…" She trailed off as her face turned bright crimson.

He laughed. She stared at him in amazement. She had never heard him laugh, was willing to bet no one in town had. He smiled, certainly, almost constantly, but she couldn't think of a single instance where he had laughed in her hearing. It was a nice laugh, a perfectly normal laugh, but for some reason it sent a chill through her.

"I'm not exactly known for random acts of kindness?" He finished her thought for her. "Well, Amy, it's not entirely a selfless act on my part. I will be getting some decent household help out of it, after all. And truthfully, I like you."

She ducked her head almost shyly. He saw her late mother in the gesture. For a brief instant he had a crystal-clear image of Grace Miller. Amy didn't look exactly like her, but the resemblance was definitely there. "Like me?" she mumbled. "You barely know me, Mr. Gold."

"That's true," he acknowledged. "But I pride myself on being a good judge of character. You're a rare girl, Amy. You're intelligent, you don't seem to be terrified of me like most in this town, and you have a loving heart. Sometimes, as you've found out, that's not exactly an asset. I hope one day for you it will be." He rose. "Come, dear. It's getting late. We'll go on to my house and I'll show you your new quarters, then we'll think about dinner."

She stood up and he offered her his arm. With only a slight hesitation she took it. They left the park, and he noted that she matched her steps to his, mindful of his limp. He smiled down at her—he was not a tall man by any means, but she was tiny, barely reaching his shoulder. She smiled back up at him. Yes, this new venture of his would certainly liven things up. There were other reasons he had offered Amy Miller a job and a home, not the least of which was the townspeople's reaction when they found out. The main reason, though, was the baby. Gold had dabbled in baby brokering from time to time over the years. It wasn't something he made a habit of doing, but with an opportunity like this dropped into his lap how could he resist?

Yes, this would be a most lucrative arrangement. For him, and for the girl as well. He wasn't an evil man. He would see to it that she was well compensated for the child, and see to it that the child went to a good home. Knowing what he did of Amy, he thought that the latter would be more important to her. Of course, there was a chance she would want to keep the child, but he was sure he could persuade her to see reason. After all, she was young, broke and completely lacking in a support system. In the end, what other choice would she have?

None, that's what. He knew this, and he knew she would come to realize this as well, at some point between now and the time the baby would be born. He stole a glance at her midsection and was relieved to see that it was flat under the outsized T-shirt she wore. She couldn't be any more than three months gone, four at the very outside. There was plenty of time yet.

She noticed the glance, but obviously had no idea of the thoughts behind it. If she'd had any idea, she would have cut and run, he was quite sure. "Ten weeks," she confirmed. "I only found out last week."

Ten weeks…just two and a half months. Yes, there was plenty of time. He would be able to convince her that adoption was the only solution, if she was as intelligent as she thought she was. And he believed wholeheartedly that he was correct in his belief. If he hadn't been entirely truthful about anything else he'd said to her, he'd been truthful about one thing: he was an excellent judge of character. Even on such short notice.

He smiled down at her in a way he hoped was kind and altruistic. Because of his hope, and her naïveté, that was what she saw. "Don't worry, dear," he said. "You and your baby are going to be just fine."

He had no way of knowing that he was right…and also wrong. For there was one person in Storybrooke who knew the truth, and that one person had the power to make his words a lie. To destroy all their happy endings.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

When Amy first laid eyes on Mr. Gold's house she could hardly believe her eyes. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but it certainly hadn't been this.

Storybrooke, while not a wealthy town by any means, boasted a few really grand homes. Up until then the nicest she had seen was the mayor's mansion. She had been there a few times in her high school days, always to babysit Henry, the mayor's little boy. She'd always been a little dazzled by its grandeur, though she'd grown used to it eventually. But even the mayor's mansion paled beside Mr. Gold's estate.

Located on the crest of a hill, surrounded on the sides by forest and at its rear a view of the Storybrooke River, the house was a large two-story square of cream-colored stucco with slightly shorter wings on either side. (Mr. Gold later informed her that the style was known as Georgian.) It had a hipped roof with dormer windows, and the main section of the house had two chimneys on either side. Three semi-circular brick steps led to the panel front door, which was centered perfectly in the middle of the main section and capped with an entablature. The roof, door and shutters were all dark green. The house wasn't in the least showy or ostentatious, but the simple elegance and the symmetrical perfection were enough to take one's breath away. Amy couldn't suppress a small gasp of delight as she took in what was to be her new home.

Mr. Gold watched her closely as she took in the house. When she finally remembered that he was standing right beside her and turned to look at him, he seemed pleased by her reaction. "Well," he asked unnecessarily, "what do you think?"

"I think it's _beautiful_," Amy breathed. He felt another wave of pleasure and admiration wash over him. In addition to her other sterling qualities, the girl appreciated beauty. He could tell already that she would take exquisite care of the house, cherish it like her very own even.

He gave her a rare genuine smile. "I'm glad," he said. "I hope you'll enjoy your stay here, Amy."

She gave him a sideways smile, but her attention was presently diverted again by the house. He didn't mind. He was enjoying her delight, and besides, while she was busy falling in love at first sight with the house he finally had ample opportunity to really look at her without seeming to be staring. Gold basked in the double enjoyment of her reaction to the house and the thrill of watching someone who doesn't realize they're being observed.

Amy Miller was not a conventionally pretty girl. Depending on the angle, he decided, she was either plain or beautiful. Her profile was almost cameo-perfect, with high cheekbones and a sculptured jaw line. Looking at her straight on, though, she had a round, nearly moon face, and the nose that was pert in profile was an undeniable pug. Her eyes were nice enough, set under delicately arching dark brows: not too large or too small, round, an attractive grayish-blue color that reminded him of the sea on an overcast day. She wore no makeup, but had the kind of porcelain complexion that didn't require much, with only the lightest smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose. Against all that fairness her hair was startlingly dark, almost black—her only apparent genetic legacy from her father. She wore it twisted in a knot on top of her head, and he found himself wondering how long it was.

No, Amy was not the kind of girl that made people stop in their tracks—until she smiled. He thought that the old cliché, "Her smile lit up her whole face," might have been created for her. When she smiled a true smile, as she was doing now, that ordinary face was transformed into something of breathtaking loveliness. As he gazed at her he couldn't shake the feeling that he knew her…that he had seen her somewhere before…she was saying something.

He came crashing back to reality with a jolt. "What?" he asked. "I'm sorry dear, my mind wandered for a moment. Did you say something?" Had she seen him staring? Did she have any idea of the thoughts that were in his head?

Apparently not, for her expression showed nothing more than mild concern. "I was saying, I can't wait to see what it looks like on the inside," she repeated. "Mr. Gold, are you all right?"

Relief spread through him. "I'm fine, dear," he hastened to assure her. Racking his brain for a plausible explanation for his reverie, he found one. "I suppose watching you get your first look at the house reminded me of the first time I ever saw it."

"The first time you ever saw it?" she repeated.

"When I bought it…oh, too many years ago to think about now," he said. "I stood here just like we're doing now and thought that I'd never seen a more beautiful house. Oh, I know it's not nearly as grand as some, but…" He trailed off. In truth he remembered nothing about the day he had first seen the house. It seemed to Mr. Gold sometimes that he had always lived here, always been the town pawnbroker and the object of the townspeople's fear and mistrust. Of course, that was silly. He had a past, everyone did. It was just that he thought of it so seldom that eventually he had lost most of it in the corridors of his mind. That was the only logical explanation.

"But it's a home," Amy said. "The really magnificent houses seem so…I don't know, cold and impersonal. You could never really be comfortable in one of those. This is a home where people could live and be happy."

He nodded. "Exactly," he responded. "That's precisely the thought that came to me the first time I saw this house." Instinctively he knew the words to be true, even if he couldn't recall the moment. He took her arm. "And now, my dear, I'll give you the grand tour."

If anything, Amy loved the inside of the house even more than the outside. Like its exterior, the interior was ornate without being overdone, elegant without being imposing. She couldn't help thinking as Mr. Gold led her through the rooms that this house was a perfect match for the man who owned it: obviously wealthy, but quietly so. It whispered money instead of shouting it. Every piece of furniture, every decorative object seemed to fit with the exterior of the house (as indeed it did; she later found out from Mr. Gold that all the furnishings, while not original to the house, were from the time period in which it was built). There were all the modern conveniences, such as a flat-screen TV hidden in an armoire in the living room and a side-by-side refrigerator with cherrywood doors in the kitchen. But the contemporary touches, rather than sticking out like sore thumbs, were cleverly camouflaged. One had a sense in this house of having entered the past.

Amy couldn't suppress a small cry of delight when Mr. Gold showed her the library. The room reminded her instantly of pictures she had seen of the library at the Biltmore estate in North Carolina. This room was much smaller, of course, and lacked the elaborate ceiling mural for which the Biltmore library was known, but other than that the resemblance was striking. The room boasted a similar color scheme of red velvet and dark wood, a fireplace that was much smaller but just as elaborately carved, and a gorgeous Oriental rug. Best of all to Amy's mind, the floor-to-ceiling shelves on each wall were packed with handsome leather-bound books.

"You're a bibliophile, I take it," Mr. Gold said as he smiled at her reaction. He was beginning to like this girl more and more.

"All my life," Amy said as she did a slow spin in the middle of the room, trying vainly to take it all in. "I practically lived at the Storybrooke Library from the time I could read until—this summer." A shadow crossed her face, and he knew she must be referring to the time when she met the young man who'd gotten her in her predicament. He felt an unaccustomed twinge of sympathy.

"Well, I hope you'll feel free to spend as much time as you like in here—when you're not working, of course," he said briskly, willing the unfamiliar and unwanted emotion away. "All I ask is that you put everything back where you find it. That should be easy for you, since everything is catalogued according to the public library system."

As he'd intended she forgot her momentary sadness at his words. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Gold," she breathed. He thought again that it was amazing such an unremarkable girl could become so striking when she smiled.

"You're most welcome, dear," he replied. "And now I think it's time we take a break. I'll show you the rest of the house tomorrow and go over your duties with you; for now I'll show you your quarters and you can freshen up a bit if you need to while I figure out what to do for dinner."

"Oh, I can start cooking now if you like," she said quickly. In her excitement over the house she had almost forgotten that she was to be a servant here. That wouldn't do at all. Mr. Gold seemed to be a kind man—far from the evil ogre that Storybrooke gossip painted him—but she knew instinctively that he wouldn't look kindly on her forgetting her place.

He was shaking his head. "No, dear," he said. "I doubt there's anything in the house to cook for one thing, and it's getting rather late for another. Tomorrow you can take one of the cars and go into town for groceries, but just for tonight you can be my guest rather than my employee." He knew she could drive, knew she had her own car, but knew too that her father had taken the keys from her upon learning of her pregnancy. No matter, he had several just sitting in the garage.

"But what will we eat?" Amy asked. She was a little embarrassed to do so, but she was getting hungry. Any minute now she was afraid her stomach would growl. And she _was_ eating for two now, after all.

"You leave that to me," he said. "I guarantee you that by the time you've seen your rooms and freshened up, I'll have dinner on the table." He grinned, revealing his gold teeth and the dimples at the sides of his mouth.

Something in his grin made Amy's lips move to respond in kind. "And how are you going to do that?" she asked with a hint of mischief in her voice. "Magic?"

That grin widened, making the dimples even more prominent. "Perhaps," he said. "But you'll have to come with me to find out, won't you?"

After Mr. Gold showed her where she would be staying, he excused himself "to work some culinary magic". Amy hadn't intended to bathe just then—she was strictly a morning shower kind of girl—but the claw-foot tub looked so inviting, and there was a jar of bubble bath on the sink and a big fluffy white bathrobe hanging on the back of the door, so she decided what the hell.

As she sat in the tub, bubbles up to her chin, she ruminated on the events of the past few hours. Things were definitely looking up, she concluded. In an absurdly short amount of time she had gone from broke, homeless and despondent to a steady job, a place to stay in a beautiful home…and all the books she could read. She felt almost as though she'd stepped into a movie, or maybe a fairytale.

Mr. Gold wasn't the monster people made him out to be, she further decided as she shampooed her hair. She could understand why people were frightened of him—he definitely had an air of authority about him—but she suspected that deep down, he had a kind heart. It was just that no one had ever gotten close enough to him to discover it. (One of Amy's most endearing qualities, as well as the one that had gotten her into the most unpleasant situations, was her astonishing naïveté.)

And, she reflected, the people in Storybrooke could be wrong about others. Look at how wrong they were about her father. If they knew how many times he'd swindled and rooked so many of them over the years, he'd be out of business in a day.

And look at Mayor Mills. Amy could not for the life of her figure out how such a cold, unfeeling woman had ever been popular enough to be elected mayor. But mayor she was, had been all Amy's life it seemed, although the woman was only in her thirties. Before she began babysitting for Henry Mills, Amy had rather admired the woman. She was so beautiful, always so well put together, and so wealthy and powerful. Amy thought with mild surprise that Mayor Mills possessed a lot of the same qualities as Mr. Gold. And therein lay the woman's power, she realized. She used fear to get people to bend to her will. Amy wondered how she and Mr. Gold managed to coexist peacefully in this town.

Yes, she had admired Mayor Mills, but the admiration had been short-lived. From the first time she'd babysat Henry, Amy had been uncomfortably aware of a terrible truth: Regina Mills didn't love her son, any more than Joe Miller loved his daughter.

She did as good a job of faking it as Amy's father always had in public, and Amy doubted that anyone else suspected. But there was something in Regina's voice when she spoke to the boy…always sharply, as though he were a rather dull-witted servant. There was always something in her eyes…a kind of frustrated impatience. Perhaps it was only Amy who saw it. Who better than an unloved child to see another parent's lack of love for their offspring? But then, Henry wasn't truly Regina's offspring; it was common knowledge in Storybrooke that the mayor had adopted Henry as a newborn. That puzzled Amy. Her father, at least, hadn't had a choice in the matter. Why would Regina choose to adopt a child she couldn't love as a mother should?

The worst thing was that Henry knew it. "She doesn't love me, Amy," he had insisted one night when she was putting him to bed. "She only wanted me so she could have a perfect child to go with her perfect life. And then when I wasn't what she wanted she couldn't love me."

Amy saw the lines of misery in his little face and couldn't bring herself to lie to him. "It's OK, Henry," she said. "One day someone's going to come along who loves you exactly the way you are, I know it." To herself she added, _and maybe the same thing will happen for me. _She had to believe that, otherwise she didn't see how she could go on. She'd thought when she met Todd that it had happened at last; that she'd finally met that person who loved her for what she was. But she'd been disappointed yet again.

Amy shook her head and pulled the stopper out of the drain. There was no point in dwelling on that now, she told herself. That was the past. Everything else—her new job, this house, _her baby_—that was the future. She had more than enough to occupy her mind over the next several months without crying over spilled milk.

She had planned to put the clothes she'd been wearing back on, since they were all she had besides the bathrobe. When she walked into the bedroom/sitting area of the apartment, however, she was surprised to see that while her clothes were neatly folded on the chair where she'd left them, there was another outfit laid out on the bed. _What the hell? _she thought as she inspected the new clothes. They weren't fancy by any stretch of the imagination—a white eyelet button-down blouse and a pair of jeans similar to the ones she'd been wearing—but they were both brands she liked and styles she would have chosen herself, and when she peeked at the tags she saw they were the right sizes as well. Amy shook her head, amused and bemused at the same time. Maybe Mr. Gold really _did_ have magical powers. Before she left the room in search of him, though, she found a shopping bag from the Storybrooke Family Shoppe (the only clothing store in town) sitting on the kitchen table along with a note.

_Amy, dear, _it read, and she smiled at how the elegant yet undeniably masculine hand suited the man to whom it belonged. _I called the Storybrooke Family Shoppe and had them send over a few things for you until we can get your belongings from your father's house. I have already conferred with Sheriff Graham about this. In the meantime I hope these will suffice. I hope you don't mind that I checked the sizes of your clothes while you were in the bath but I wanted to make sure they would be the right fit. When you're dressed you may meet me in the dining room. _The note was signed with a sprawling "G".

Amy did a quick inventory of the contents of the bag. In addition to the blouse and jeans, there was a pair of pajamas—baby dolls, jut like the ones she wore at home—a bra, and a couple of pairs of panties. She flushed a bit as she realized he must have checked the sizes on those, too. But how had he known about the pajamas?

Oh, of course. The ladies who ran the shop—three elderly sisters named Flora, Fauna and Merry—must have picked them out. She had been shopping there all her life. They obviously knew her tastes by now. She wondered what they must have thought when Mr. Gold called asking for clothes for her. Not that it really mattered, she supposed. Her new situation would be common knowledge soon enough. With a rueful shake of her head, she dressed quickly. Everything fit as well as she had known it would.

She decided to leave her hair down and let it dry on its own. Pulling on the soft brown moccasins she'd been wearing earlier, she left the apartment in search of the dining room and Mr. Gold.

He was waiting for her just as he'd said. She was surprised to see that he had gone all out; the table was set with china and silver, and two taper candles burned in gold candelabras that she suspected cost more than the house she had shared with her father. For a minute she felt slightly intimidated by the splendor of the table. That vanished, however, when she glimpsed the Chinese take-out cartons sitting on the sideboard.

She couldn't help the giggle that escaped her. "What's so funny?" Mr. Gold queried from his place at the head of the table. He was smiling, however, and she saw that he was amused rather than affronted.

"I'm sorry," Amy said once she got the giggling under control. "It's just…I saw the table and thought maybe you really had magically produced some kind of gourmet four-course dinner…and then I saw the take-out cartons…" She was unable to continue as the giggles got the better of her.

He laughed for the second time in her hearing; and this time she felt no _frisson _down her spine. "It was the only thing I could think of on short notice," he confessed. "Sheriff Graham was kind enough to pick it up for me—he picked up the clothes, too—and he brought it when he dropped by to discuss your…situation."

She blushed…very prettily, he couldn't help noticing. "So Sheriff Graham knows, too?" she asked.

"Just the basics right now," he answered as he stood and moved to the sideboard for the take-out cartons. Amy did the same, and they moved the cartons to the table. "He knows you've had a falling-out with your father and will be staying here for the time being. You'll be pleased to know that your father has no legal right to keep your property. I'm afraid we can't do anything about the car, since it's in his name. But as far as your clothes and other personal belongings, he has no right to keep those. Since you're no longer a minor"—she had told him during the ride to the house that she had turned nineteen just the previous month—"there's no way to prove you didn't buy them yourself, and he'll have to surrender them. Sheriff Graham will pick them up tomorrow and bring them here."

"Thank you," Amy said as they took their seats, he at the head of the table, she at his right. What else was there to say? "Oh, and thank you for the clothes. They're perfect."

"Good, good," he said. "I told the ladies at the shop just to pick the sort of clothes you normally bought. I assumed you did most of your shopping there."

"All of it," she said. "I even bought my prom dress there."

"Yes, they have a rather wide selection for a small-town clothing store," Mr. Gold agreed as he began to open the cartons. "Help yourself, dear. I didn't know what you liked, so I just ordered a little of everything."

"A little of everything" included sweet-and-sour chicken, beef and broccoli, shrimp in garlic sauce, teriyaki vegetables, fried rice, lo mein noodles, and egg drop and hot-and-sour soup. Amy, who hadn't been really hungry, was suddenly ravenous. She put a spoonful of everything on her plate and poured some hot-and-sour soup into her bowl. Maybe it hadn't been that wild of a guess, but she just happened to love Asian food, the spicier, the better.

"Normally I have a glass of wine with dinner," Mr. Gold remarked, "but given your condition and the fact that you're not quite of age yet, I think we'll skip that. I have water, milk, juice…"

"Water will be fine," she said quickly. Ever since she'd become pregnant, milk made her queasy and juice gave her heartburn. She supposed she would have to force herself to start drinking oceans of both, anyway. She wanted to have a healthy baby.

He poured ice water from a crystal pitcher into a matching crystal goblet. She supposed—correctly—that both pitcher and goblet were the finest Waterford. It took everything in her not to clink her fork against the goblet to see if it really made a chiming sound.

"Now, dear," he said when they were both served and had begun to eat, "normally I hate to discuss business over dinner, but there are a few important things we need to go over if you don't mind."

"All right," Amy agreed. She was curious as to what "important matters" they needed to discuss right away, but willing to go along. She wanted to please her new employer.

"You said earlier that you're two and a half months pregnant," Gold began. "I'm assuming you've seen a doctor?"

Amy bowed her head, a little discomfited. She hadn't expected him to go into _this_ right away.

"Please don't be embarrassed, dear," he went on. "I need to know these things as your employer. I want to help you in any way I can."

"I haven't seen a doctor yet," she said in a low voice. "Just the nurse practitioner at the clinic, when I had my pregnancy test."

"I'm assuming 'the clinic' is the Planned Parenthood clinic in town?" he continued. She nodded, her face scarlet with mortification.

He reached out and touched her hand lightly. "Please, dear, work with me here," he said. "I'm certainly not going to ask you any…intimate details. Anything I ask will be related to your job and your stay here. If you want to tell me anything more, I'm here to listen. But for now I'm just trying to ascertain that you're getting the care you need.

"Now," he continued. "I want you to make an appointment as soon as possible with the OB-GYN at Storybrooke Hospital, Dr. Dockery. I assume you're familiar with him?"

Amy brightened a little. "Oh yes," she said. "Everyone knows Dr. Dockery. He delivered me. I've seen him around town all my life, and he's always known me—said hello, asked how I was doing." She liked the thought of the kindly doctor being in charge of her prenatal care.

"Very good," Mr. Gold said. "So, I want you to call tomorrow and set up a preliminary appointment with Dr. Dockery—and I want the bills to come to me."

Amy shook her head. "Oh, Mr. Gold, I couldn't ask you to do that—"

He leaned forward. "I insist, Amy," he said firmly. The candlelight made his large dark eyes even larger and darker. He wasn't smiling now; his face was deadly serious. Looking into his eyes Amy was reminded of a snake hypnotizing its prey. The thought flashed through her mind: _Maybe everyone is right to be scared of Mr. Gold._

She immediately felt guilty, however, for his next words were kind. "If you're going to work for me and live under my roof, I feel I should be responsible for your healthcare," he said. He sat back and folded his hands, once more the Mr. Gold she had come to know. "I can't offer you insurance or benefits as other jobs would, but I can do that at least. You won't be eligible for your father's insurance now that you're of age and no longer under his roof, and I'd hate to see you start your adult life with a mountain of debt due to medical bills."

Amy felt about two inches tall after that little speech. "In that case," she said with all the dignity she could muster, "I accept your kind offer and I thank you for it."

He smiled at her, and she had the odd feeling that she had pleased him somehow. "You're more than welcome, Amy," he said. "Now, I must confess the next item is only loosely related to your employment, but I can't help but be curious. Have you given any thought to your options after the child is born?"

Whoa. Talk about a curveball. She was beginning to understand that was Mr. Gold's way; he would lull one into a sense of security, then come out of nowhere and bumfuzzle them. He should have been in law enforcement with _that _particular talent. He would be worth his weight in gold as an interrogator (she groaned inwardly at the unintentional pun).

She wondered just what he would do if his technique had the intended effect—if she opened up and told all. She decided she would find out.

"Well, you've probably guessed by now that I decided against an abortion," she said candidly, and was rewarded by a slight lift in his eyebrows. "I'm not against other women having them, but I knew it wasn't the right decision for me."

His answer was smooth, but she could tell by his still-raised brows that she had knocked him for a bit of a loop. "I believe in a woman's right to choose," he said. "However, I can understand why you feel that wasn't the right choice for you. So, you won't be terminating the pregnancy. Do you mind telling me what you _do_ plan?"

She sighed. "I want to keep the baby," she admitted. He nodded sympathetically; he had expected as much. "But," she went on, "what I want and what's best for the baby are two different things." She took a sip of water before she continued. "The way things stand right now, I think the best thing would be to give the baby up for adoption."

Something flashed in Mr. Gold's eyes…something that looked oddly like triumph. But perhaps it was a trick of the candlelight, for when he spoke his voice was grave and concerned. "I think that's probably a wise decision, dear."

Encouraged by his words, and choosing to ignore that momentary gleam in his eye, Amy went on. "I want my baby to have the best life possible," she said, "and right now I don't think I can give it that."

He remained outwardly calm, but inside he was exulting. _It was going to be this easy?_ But he forced himself to continue playing the kindly benefactor. "I admire you for realizing that," he said. "I think, too, that you need to consider that adoption would be the best option for you as well. You're an intelligent girl, Amy; you deserve a chance to make something of yourself. You deserve the chance to go to college, have a career, experience life. You could do that with a child, I suppose, but it would be so much more difficult…and in your case, with no real support system behind you, it would be well nigh impossible."

"So you think adoption would be the right thing to do?" she asked. Her intellectual mind was pleased that he agreed with her, but her heart broke a little. Part of her had hoped he would say, _Of course you can keep your baby, you and the baby can stay here as long as you need. _But she supposed that was silly.

"I think so," he replied. Then he went for the _piece de résistance: _"Of course, if your circumstances were to change—if your young man were to come back, for example, or if your father were to change his mind and accept you and the baby back into his home—I would be the first one to tell you to keep your child. I think you'd be an excellent mother, Amy, and I hope one day you have the chance to be one, on your terms. But let's face it, as of right now the circumstances aren't likely to change, are they?"

She shook her head, suddenly weary. Whether it was from the conversation, the events of the day catching up to her, or simply her pregnancy she couldn't have said. "No," she said softly. "They're not."

He saw her exhaustion and decided to drop the matter for now. They had discussed enough for one night. Her head was in the right place, and she would need no persuasion. Time enough later to offer to help her find a suitable family for the child.

"You're tired," he said gently. "Why don't you go on to bed? I generally rise early, since I open the shop at eight, but opening late one day isn't going to bankrupt me. Meet me in the kitchen at eight. I do have some breakfast makings here. We'll discuss some of your duties, decide which of the cars would be best for you to drive and such. Then you can drop me off at the shop and go do that grocery shopping we talked about."

"All right," she agreed, her voice dull with fatigue. She rose to leave, then looked at the dishes, at him, and back at the dishes.

"Don't worry about those, dear," he answered her unspoken question. "I can tell you're practically asleep on your feet. And besides, tonight you're a guest, not an employee."

She flashed him a tired smile. "Good night then, Mr. Gold," she said, turning to exit the room. In the doorway she paused.

"Thank you, Mr. Gold," she said. "For everything."

"You're welcome, dear," he said. "Sleep well." He hadn't moved from his chair.

She knew she would; in fact, it was all she could do to make her way back to her little apartment in the west wing and change into the new pajamas. She forced herself to brush her teeth (there was a brand-new toothbrush by the sink in her bathroom; Mr. Gold really was the host with the most) and crawled into the four-poster bed—not as elaborate as the other furnishings in the house, but oh-so-comfortable. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she was asleep.

But it was a very, very long time before Mr. Gold moved from his chair. And if Amy could have known the thoughts that were going through his head—or seen the look in his eyes—she would have fled into the night.

**Thanks so much to everyone who's put my story on their alerts, and to my two reviewers, First Lady Lestat and Ravenclaw992!**

**One of my favorite things about Once Upon A Time is how different the characters of Rumpelstiltskin and Mr. Gold are. Rumpelstiltskin is quite obviously batshit insane, while Mr. Gold is more the suave-yet-sinister type. I haven't been able to figure out yet why this is, aside from the obvious fact that one doesn't get to be the most powerful man in town by capering around and generally being a blatant psychopath. I think on the show Rumpel/Mr. Gold remembers **_**everything; **_**however, for the purposes of my story he has only the vaguest memories and hints that everything isn't as it seems. And these memories will get stronger as time goes on. Of course, it's pretty obvious who Amy is/was in Fairytale…but is the real story of Rumpelstiltskin the one we're all familiar with? Only time will tell! **


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Amy looked at her phone and sighed. In all the excitement of the previous day, she had completely forgotten to turn it off vibrate, and her friends had been blowing it up with calls and texts. Ruby was the culprit of most of them, though Ashley had left several messages too. She decided she had better find them both and assure them she was alive and well.

She had already dropped Mr. Gold off at his shop and was driving towards the grocery store, but she decided to make a quick detour at Granny's Diner. She knew Ruby would definitely be there and Ashley likely would be, and besides, she was hungry again. The cereal and toast she had eaten two hours before were only a distant memory, and she was craving a stack of Granny's pancakes. _I've got to stop pigging out like I have been, or I'll be as big as a house by the time I deliver, _she thought. She had already paid a steep price for last night's Chinese food, awakening in the night with a monster case of heartburn and again that morning with a savage, but mercifully brief bout of morning sickness. During the siege of vomiting, she hadn't imagined she would ever feel like eating anything again; but within half an hour she had sat down to the breakfast Mr. Gold had already had waiting and devoured every bite.

She parked in front of the diner and got out of the car Mr. Gold had given her for her use, a black Mercedes XL. He had told her she could use it for any personal errands as well as trips to the dry-cleaner's and the grocery store, and had presented her with a charge card with which to buy gas. No doubt about it, he was a most generous employer, but she had no intention of taking advantage of his generosity. She didn't plan to use the car any more than she had to.

As she walked to the diner's front door, she realized Ruby had already seen her through the plate-glass window. She hauled ass to the door (Amy was always amazed that she could move so fast in stilettos) and was holding it open for Amy by the time she reached it.

"What the hell, Amelia!" she exclaimed at top volume. "Why wouldn't you answer your phone yesterday? I called, I texted, I drove around looking for you…then Sheriff Graham came by and I was so freaked out I told him you were missing. He told me he knew where you were and that you were OK but he wouldn't tell me anything else. I kept trying to get in touch with you all last night, but you never answered. Granny's been worried to death, too. You know how she is; anytime someone's missing for more than five minutes she thinks they're stone cold dead in a ditch. Shit, I was starting to think the same thing. Then you pull up in the most badass car in town besides mine and just stroll in like nothing ever happened! What is the deal, girl?"

"Hello, Ruby," Amy said dryly. "It's good to see you too. To answer your first question, I had my phone on vibrate and didn't know it. I just saw all the calls and texts this morning. I figured I better come by and make sure you and Ashley hadn't put out an APB or anything."

"Nuh-uh," Ruby scoffed, shaking her head so that her long black-and-red hair flew around her face. "I'm not buying that. Since when do you forget to check your phone? You practically have the thing grafted to your hand."

Amy raised her eyebrows. "Well, Rube, if you recall I've had some…rather major issues lately."

Ruby stared at her blankly for a moment before it dawned on her. "Oh!" Being prudent for once, she grabbed Amy's hand and tugged her over to a booth in the corner. Once they were seated, she whispered, "I figured it was something to do with…the baby. What happened?" Her eyes widened. "Don't tell me your dad found out!"

Amy's expression was all the answer she needed.

"Holy shit!" Ruby hollered. Heads turned to stare at them. Ruby's hand flew to her mouth; Amy tried to make herself as small as possible in the booth. "Sorry," Ruby whispered. "But…oh my God! I can't believe your old man found out! How'd he find out? What did he do?" Her eyes narrowed. "Is that where that place on your cheek came from?"

Amy sighed. "It's a long-ass story, Rube," she said. "And I'm famished. But if you'll get your granny to throw a short stack on the griddle for me, I'll give you the Cliffs Notes version while we're waiting."

By the time Granny brought her pancakes out, Amy had patiently gone through the entire story twice—once for Ruby, and then for Ashley, who'd showed up just as she was finishing telling Ruby about the previous day's events. By the time she completed the second telling, Ruby and Ashley were sitting across from her in the booth, hanging on every word. If their mouths dropped any further, Amy thought privately, their chins would hit the table.

Still, she was glad to have her two best friends with her. The three girls, just a few months apart in age, had known one another all their lives. They had gone through school together. Last year, their senior year at Storybrooke High, Ruby had been voted Biggest Flirt, Ashley had been voted Friendliest, and Amy had been voted Shyest. That, she thought, pretty much summed them up.

"So let me get this straight," Ruby said when she could finally speak again. "Your dad threw a shit fit and kicked you out of the house. Then Mr. Gold showed up out of nowhere and offered you a job and a place to live."

Amy laughed. "Pretty much."

"And you took it?"

She shrugged. "What other choice did I have?" she asked. "I'm broke, Todd is history, my father made it clear he wants nothing more to do with me, and I had nowhere else to go."

"Not true," Ruby said indignantly. "Why didn't you come to Granny and me? You know we would have let you stay at the inn as long as you needed to. You could have worked for us there, or here."

"I couldn't ask your granny to do that," Amy protested. "I know y'all are barely scraping by as it is. I wasn't going to ask her to take me on."

"Don't be stupid," Ruby snapped. "Granny's crazy about you. All my life I've heard 'Why can't you be more like Amy?' she would have been glad to let you stay with us. Instead you went with"—she shuddered—"Mr. Gold."

Ashley spoke up. "He's not _that _bad, Ruby," she said. "I admit, I was nervous about working for him at first. Hell, I still am. But Amy's right, he's not really the big bad boogeyman people make him out to be. He didn't fire me when I set the kettle on fire or dyed his shirt pink. I even offered to let him take the kettle and the shirt out of my salary, but he didn't. He said 'Nonsense, dear. Accidents happen.'" Amy appreciated the vote of confidence, but couldn't help groaning inwardly at Ashley's terrible imitation of his Scottish brogue.

Ruby tossed her head. "I don't care what you say," she insisted. "Mr. Gold is creepy. Granny's scared to death of him, and on that one thing I agree with her. I'd be terrified to work for him. And I can't even imagine sleeping in his _house_!"

"Well, I don't know why," said a new voice. "You certainly don't have a problem sleeping anywhere else…except maybe your own bed."

The trio looked up to see Ruby's grandmother standing there with Amy's order of pancakes. Her voice was tart, but her elderly face was filled with kindness and concern. "Are you all right, honey?" she asked Amy.

Amy rose and hugged the closest thing to a mother she'd ever known. "I'm fine, Granny," she reassured the old woman.

"Well, you had this granddaughter of mine worried sick," Granny said. "I told her now she knows how it feels. But you had me worried too, sweetheart." She dropped her voice. "And how's your little package?"

Amy glanced at Ruby, who looked sheepish. "Sorry," she said. "She got it out of me last night when I was so scared."

"That's all right," Amy said. "Pretty soon everyone will know anyway. My—ah, package is just fine."

"I have to say, darlin', you're the last one I thought it would happen to," Granny blurted. Ruby rolled her eyes. "Did I hear you say your daddy kicked you out?" Amy nodded. The old woman's eyes grew dark. "Shameful, just shameful. Not your situation, honey," she added hastily. "These things happen. But it's shameful the way he treats you. I've always thought so. I always wanted to tell him, but I was afraid he'd fire me and then you'd be all alone in that house. When he _did _fire me you'd better believe I gave him a piece of my mind." She chuckled, then was serious again. "I only wish he'd listened. Honey, if you need anything, anything at all—"

"I don't need a thing, Granny," Amy smiled.

"She's OK, Gran," Ruby seconded. "She's playing house with Mr. Gold." The black-haired girl's eyes sparkled with mischief.

Granny gasped and took a step back. For one second, Amy thought the woman was going to drop her short stack. But that quickly gave way to worry that the old woman would suffer a heart attack. She'd had one just a few months earlier. "Damn it, Ruby, it's not like that," she snapped. "Granny, are you OK?"

Granny managed to catch her breath. "I'm fine, dear," she said. "Just…not what I was expecting to hear, that's all." Amy glared at Ruby, who had the grace to look guilty.

"God, Ruby," Ashley said mildly. "That really wasn't the best way to put it."

Ruby flushed. She knew she'd gone too far. "Sorry guys," she muttered sullenly. "Sorry, Granny."

"Amy's working for Mr. Gold now, too, Granny," Ashley explained. "And since her dad kicked her out, he's letting her stay at his house."

"Yes," Amy continued. "There's a little apartment in one wing. Probably built to be the servant's quarters, but it's really nice. I'm staying there for now." She added, "Mr. Gold's really been very kind, Granny. He bought me some clothes and arranged for the sheriff to get my things from my father's house. He's even going to pay my bills for…you know."

"WHAT?" Ruby exclaimed. "You didn't tell us that part!"

Amy shrugged. "I forgot."

Granny seemed to be fully recovered now. "Well, perhaps he's not as big am ogre as he seems," she said, clearly not believing it. "And I have to admit, as much as I'd love to hire you on I don't have the money to do that and pay my bills too. That's one thing Mr. Gold has plenty of that I don't—money." She reached out and gave Amy's shoulder a squeeze. "Just be careful, honey. I don't think that man ever does anything kind without thinking about what's in it for him. And if you should change your mind, my door's always open. We'll figure out a way to make it work." She gave Amy one last shoulder squeeze and returned to the kitchen.

Amy dug into her pancakes. They were a little cold by now, but still delicious. "Damn, girl," Ruby said. "I thought you said the meals came with."

"I can't help it," Amy whined. "I did eat breakfast, but I'm so hungry all the time." She paused. "Except when I'm hurling of course."

"Ugh." Ruby wrinkled her nose.

Amy decided to torture her a little. "Yeah, you should have seen the barf fest going on this morning," she said. "I swear I think I threw up the ghost of meals I haven't even eaten yet."

"Oh, that's disgusting," Ruby wailed. She was notoriously squeamish; Amy would never forget the time she had fainted while they were dissecting a fetal pig in biology.

Amy shook her head with mock sadness. "And it's only gonna get worse from here on out," she said somberly. "I hear pregnant women usually get hemorrhoids—"

"Oh, God, cut it out, Amelia!" Ruby squealed. "You want me to spew all over the table?"

Amy grinned, triumphant. "I really wish you'd stop calling me that," she said. Her name wasn't Amelia and Ruby well knew it. She had given her the nickname in middle school when the three girls were going through a Victorian novel phase. "Amelia is an old-

fashioned name and you're an old-fashioned girl," she'd said. "You even look like an antique porcelain doll. You were born in the wrong century, I swear." The Victorian phase hadn't lasted but the nickname had.

"It's not even appropriate anymore," she continued, pushing the last bite of pancakes around her plate to soak up all the syrup. "Amelia's a prim-and-proper sort of name, don't you think? I don't think a girl named Amelia would have gotten herself into my present situation. You'll have to start calling me Hester." At her friends' blank looks she sighed. "You know, Hester Prynne? _The Scarlet Letter_? We had to read it in English class our junior year?"

"Oh, yeah," Ashley finally said. "Wasn't Demi Moore in the movie?"

Amy barely refrained from rolling her eyes. She loved her two best friends dearly, but sometimes she wished she had someone to carry on an intellectual conversation with.

"Amelia still fits you, anyway," Ruby grinned. "You still have that pure, untouched air about you. You always will. If I didn't know better I'd think you'd gotten pregnant by osmosis or something." Amy had to smile at the scientific reference. Ruby was a lot more intelligent than she liked to let on.

She'd finished her pancakes by now, but the trio continued to linger at their booth. Soon Ruby would have to go back to waiting tables, but right now, in between the breakfast crowd and the lunch rush, the diner was mostly empty. There was something Amy needed to get off her mind.

"Listen, Ash," she said. "I hope you don't mind that Mr. Gold offered me the apartment. I'm sure he would have given it to you if you didn't already have a place to stay—"

"Oh, no," Ashley interrupted. "You need it way more than I do. I wouldn't want to stay there, anyway. It's too far away from my other job"—Ashley worked evenings at the bowling alley—"and Sean." She giggled.

"That douchebag," Ruby grumbled. "I don't know why you bother with him. He won't even give you the time of day unless his daddy isn't around."

Ashley waved her hand dismissively. "Anyway, I'm just glad he didn't fire me when he hired you. I know you're much better at housekeeping than I am. But this way we get to work together."

Ashley wasn't the brightest bulb, but she was sweet. "I'm glad we'll be working together, too," Amy said, smiling at the pretty blonde.

"Well, well," said a familiar voice, "if it isn't my two newest employees."

Amy jumped. "Oh, hey, Mr. Gold!" she said. "I just stopped in to let Ruby and Ashley know I was still alive. I forgot I had my phone turned off last night, and I had about a million texts and calls from them this morning."

"I see," he said, smiling down at her. He acknowledged the two other girls in the booth. "Ashley, Ruby."

"Hi, Mr. Gold," Ashley squeaked. Ruby muttered a hello and jumped up.

"Can I get you your usual, Mr. Gold?" she asked. Amy and Ashley exchanged amused glances. Ruby took her sweet time waiting on most people. Only Mr. Gold and the mayor could make her hop to.

"Yes, dear," he said, barely glancing at her. "To go, if you don't mind. I'm afraid I'm rather busy today." Ruby scurried over to the counter.

Amy couldn't shake the feeling she'd been caught slacking on the job—and on her first day, to boot. "I was just getting ready to head to the store," she informed Mr. Gold. "I'm glad you're here, because I was going to come by your shop first. We forgot to go over a menu for the week."

"Anything you want to make is fine, dear," Mr. Gold said. He looked especially elegant today in a black pinstriped suit, black dress shirt and red-and-black jacquard print tie. "As I said, it's been a while since I've had a home-cooked meal, and I'm not a finicky eater. I'm sure whatever you decide will do nicely."

"Well, is there anything special you'd like to have?" Amy nearly chirped. She was aghast to feel herself flushing to her collarbone. She didn't know why she was so nervous; he was perfectly relaxed as always, and hadn't intimated by so much as a glance that he thought she was shirking her duties. Perhaps it was just because this was her first public interaction with him. Ashley was oblivious to Amy's high color and too-bright voice. Ruby, busily preparing Mr. Gold's order behind the counter, noticed, but she had her own thoughts on the matter.

"I'll tell you what, dear," he said. "Why don't you make your favorite meal for me tonight? I'm sure I'll enjoy it. As far as the rest of the week goes, just get the things you're most comfortable making."

"I can do that," Amy said gladly. "I don't even need a recipe for my favorite meal. I know the ingredients and the steps by heart. It's—"

"Oh, no, dear," Mr. Gold interrupted smoothly. "Why don't you just surprise me?" Ruby dinged the bell on the counter. "Ah, there's my order," he observed. "Amy, I'll be closing the shop at six tonight. I should be home no later than seven. Why don't you try to have dinner, whatever it might be—" his dimples flashed—"ready about seven-thirty? Oh, Sheriff Graham will be coming by with your belongings this evening as well."

"Sounds like a plan," Amy said cheerfully. She had a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. She told herself it had everything to do with pregnancy and nothing at all to do with the sight of those dimples.

Ruby knew better, however. As soon as Mr. Gold exited the diner she fairly flew back to the booth. "Oh my God," she blared. "You totally have a crush on Mr. Gold!"

"Ruby!" Amy cried, mortified. She was glad the diner just happened to be empty at the moment. "I do not!" even as she denied it she blushed red to her hairline.

"Oh, yes, you most certainly do, Amelia," Ruby said smugly as she slid back into the booth. "'Is there anything special I can do for you, Mr. Gold?'" she mimicked in a high falsetto. "'What's your favorite, Mr. Gold? How about if I just get bare-assed and hop up on the table and lay there waiting for you, Mr. Gold? Will that be OK?'"

"Stop it!" Amy cried, tomato-red by now and convulsing with helpless laughter. She couldn't help imagining Mr. Gold's reaction if she were to do exactly that. Not that she would ever want to do such a thing, of course.

"I can't believe you, Ruby," she said when she finally gained control of herself. "Mr. Gold is old enough to be my father. And I'm _working _for the man, for God's sake! I would never do anything like that!" She struggled for a severe tone and failed miserably. She could just picture Mr. Gold standing there, his mouth hanging open with shock, his cane dropped forgotten by his feet. He would probably sprint to the nearest phone, his limp be damned, and call the local mental hospital. Or else he would shuck his clothes as fast as humanly possible and join her—_Oh, no. Not going there, not going there. Jesus, what's the matter with me? I know pregnancy causes your hormones to go nuts, but this is ridiculous!_

"Oh, stuff the puritan act, Amelia," Ruby said. "You've proved once and for all that you do, in fact, have the fire down below. I think it's cute. He may be a creep, but he _is _kind of sexy in his own weird way. And what's more, I think he likes you too."

Now Amy was the one with her jaw practically hanging to her chest. "Ruby," she began, "you can't possibly think—"

"Oh, hell, girl, I don't mean he wants to jump your bones," Ruby interrupted. "But I really do think he likes you." She grew serious. "I was watching him with you. He's nice to you. _Really _nice, not that fakey kind of nice he is with most people. I'm sure Granny would argue with me, but maybe he did take you in out of the goodness of his heart." She paused. "I hope so."

Amy felt a rush of love for her friend. As wildly inappropriate as she was sometimes—OK, most times—Ruby was as loyal and caring a person as there was. "I think so, Rube," she said. "I wouldn't have agreed to this otherwise."

"I know," Ruby said. "Just remember what Granny said: If you change your mind you can always come stay with us." She paused again. "I just need to ask a favor of you."

"OK, shoot," Amy said, walking right into the trap.

"If you ever _do_—ahem, make sweet sweet love with Mr. Gold, will you tell me how he is? I'm kind of curious now."

That did it. Even Ashley, who had looked as if she wanted to crawl under the table during the whole exchange, had to succumb to the hilarity. The three of them sat at the table and roared with laughter until Granny bellowed from the kitchen, "Girls! That's enough! Anyone would think this place was a lunatic asylum!" That set them off yet again, for that was exactly what she'd always said during their younger years when they were creating too much of a ruckus.

When Amy left the diner, she felt better than she had…well, in a week. Even with the betrayal of her ex-boyfriend and her father's abandonment, she felt cautiously optimistic about the future. She had a job, a roof over her head. She was going to have the best medical care for her baby. She was still conflicted about what she would do once the baby was actually born, but she trusted herself to make the right decision when the time came, whatever that would be. And most important of all, even if the two main men in her life had deserted her, she still had her friends. She _was_ loved, even if she forgot that sometimes.

Amy caught herself whistling as she got into the car. _Wow, I really am feeling better, _she thought happily. Then she realized she was whistling the old Bob Seger tune, "Fire Down Below", and groaned out loud.

"Away with that," she told herself. "Away with that, Amy Miller. The fire down below got you in a whole mess of trouble. The only thing you need to worry about right now is pleasing you new employer." She paused as she realized how that sounded. "Oh, shit."

**Yes, it was a little fluffy and didn't have nearly enough Mr. Gold, but there's Chapter 3. Don't worry; he'll be onstage for most of Chapter 4. By the way, Ashley Boyd is not pregnant in my story, but otherwise I'm going to try to stick pretty close to canon. (I figured one pregnant maid was enough for Mr. Gold to deal with.) And the story is set several months before Emma's arrival, but she'll be a part of it when the time comes. Also, since we don't know Granny, Ruby, and Doc's last names yet I just used ones I felt were appropriate. If we do find out their Storybrooke surnames I'll adjust my tale accordingly. **

**I forgot to mention in the last two chapters, I only own my OC (but as one of my reviews pointed out, she's not really an OC is she?) Everything else belongs to Disney, ABC, et cetera.**

**Once again, thanks to all my readers and reviewers. Oh, and if anyone is curious as to what Mr. Gold's house looks like, just Google Eleutherian Mills. It's part of the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware, and was one of the ancestral homes of the du Pont family. I saw a picture of it while I was flipping through a magazine, and the first thing that popped into my mind was "That's Mr. Gold's house!" I borrowed most of the description from Wikipedia.**

**Until we meet again! **


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Mr. Gold arrived home at six-thirty that evening to delicious smells wafting from the kitchen and a surprisingly pleasant alto voice wafting from the same direction. For a moment, he simply stood in the foyer admiring both. Finally, he made his way to the source of the appetizing aroma and sounds.

As he passed through the rooms on the way to the kitchen he noted that they were even more immaculate than they had been that morning. Every surface was spotless, every rug was vacuumed, every wood floor shone like glass, and the pleasant fragrance of lemon polish lingered in the air. His smile widened. The girl must have worked all day, no doubt trying to make up for being found at the diner seemingly lazing off. Not that he believed that had been the case. Of course Amy would want to assure her friends that she was all right first thing; that was simply the kind of young woman she was. And just because she was living in didn't mean she had to be on the clock 24/7. As long as she performed her duties to his satisfaction—and judging from what he'd come home to he had little doubt about that—she was entitled to some leisure time. If he could find a graceful way to bring the subject up this evening, he decided, he would let her know this.

He entered the kitchen to find Amy at the stove, her back toward him, apparently steaming something and singing her heart out; obviously she hadn't heard the front door. "_Oh the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear, and he shows them, pearly white_," she sang in that unexpected, slightly smoky voice. He thought fleetingly that she sounded like she could be onstage at some smoke-filled jazz club, then was slightly amused when he recognized the song. "Mack the Knife". An odd choice for one so young, but infinitely preferable to some Top 40 drivel.

She was wearing her hair down again, he saw. It hung to her shoulder blades in a soft cloud of near-black that, oddly, lacked any shine but was appealing nonetheless. Like dark fleece, it was, or the softest cotton. He found himself wondering what it would feel like under his fingers, if it was as downy as it looked. In his mind's eye he pictured himself reaching out to stroke it, but cut off the vision abruptly. No, that wouldn't do at all.

Amy, completely oblivious to his presence and his thoughts, continued the song and her activity at the stove. Just as he was about to make himself known she spun around for the big finale of the song, but still didn't see him; her eyes were closed, lost in her performance.

"_I said now Jenny Diver, hey! Sukey Tawdry! Look out for Miss Lotte Lenya, and old Lucy Brown_—" Without warning her eyes opened. When she saw him standing there she

gave a little shriek and took a step back, her hand fluttering to her throat. "Mr. Gold!" she gasped, trying to calm her wildly fluttering heart. "I didn't hear you come in."

"I'm sorry, dear," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you."

Her heart was finally slowing its frantic beating, but she could feel that damned red creeping up her neck and face again. She hoped he didn't notice, but knew he probably did. She understood already that very little escaped Mr. Gold.

Something flickered in his dark eyes—was it amusement? When he spoke again his voice was gentle, obviously trying to put her at her ease. "You have a very pleasant voice, dear. Tell me, where on earth did you learn that old song?"

She smiled shyly. "Granny—Mrs. Woods—used to sing it when I was little. I bet I have the whole Bobby Darin songbook in my head somewhere, thanks to her. 'Mack the Knife' was always my favorite, though."

Mr. Gold realized that he very much enjoyed the blush that spread from the roots of her hair to her delicate collarbone when she was embarrassed. The soft rose color looked very well indeed against that dark hair and those blue eyes. Amy really was a most attractive young woman. He wondered fleetingly if her child would be as lovely as she. Probably, he decided. Not that it really mattered; even the homeliest newborn would fetch top dollar as long as it was white and healthy.

He didn't care for that thought and banished it from his mind hastily. Damned if he knew why, but he didn't like to dwell upon the plans he had for Amy Miller and her baby. He still had every intention of "arranging the child's adoption", he just didn't care to think about it any more than he had to. He had never had this problem in the few other "adoptions" he'd set up. Perhaps it was because he knew the mother in this case. It had been easy in the cases where he didn't; it had been simple to dismiss the mothers as strumpets who were more than happy to rid themselves of an unwanted burden and make some money in the process. But he could tell already that was not the case here. Once again, he made a vow to himself that he would try to find the best home for the child, not just the wealthiest couple who would pay the highest price. He would also make sure that Amy received compensation enough to begin a new life for herself, the sort of life she deserved. And if he managed to line his own pockets a bit in the process, what was the harm in that?

But he didn't want to dwell on these kinds of thoughts for the time being. There were still months to go. Right now the important thing was to get Amy to like him, to trust him, so that when he offered his help in finding a family for the baby she wouldn't suspect his motives were anything other than altruistic. He changed the subject.

"Dinner smells absolutely wonderful," he said. "You said earlier you were making your favorite meal. So tell me, dear, what culinary delights do you have in store?"

She was on comfortable ground now. "Pork tenderloin," she announced. "In my secret marinade, with oven-roasted potatoes and steamed broccoli."

He was impressed. He knew she'd mentioned that she could cook, but he hadn't expected anything quite so ambitious. "Excellent," he said, flashing those dimples again. This time Amy blamed the flutter in her stomach on hunger and the heat of the kitchen.

He noticed there was only one place set at the kitchen table. "Have you eaten already, dear?"

"Oh, no," she said quickly. "I've set your place in the dining room. I know it isn't proper for the…household help…to eat with the master of the house."

He threw back his head and laughed, revealing those gold teeth. Instead of being revolted by them as she would have expected, Amy found them strangely charming. Like his cane, they seemed more of an elegant accessory than anything else.

"Dear, I don't stand on formality," he announced. "On the rare occasions I have guests for dinner, I will, of course, expect to eat in the dining room, and I'll expect you to serve. I'll provide a uniform for you to wear on those occasions. After all, I do have a reputation to uphold. But when it's just us, I'd much rather we ate together, here in the kitchen. It gets boring, eating alone; furthermore, I enjoy your company and I think we could have some fascinating conversations."

Amy pinkened again, this time with pleasure. Mr. Gold enjoyed her company? He wanted to converse with her? She couldn't help being flattered by that. She recalled her earlier thought of how nice it would be to have an intellectual conversation for a change. Undoubtedly, Mr. Gold could provide that. She ducked her head shyly and murmured, "Of course, if you'd like that, Mr. Gold. I'll set another place right away."

"I'm assuming it will be a few minutes yet before everything is finished," he said. At her nod of assent, he continued, "If you don't mind, dear, I'm going to have a glass of wine in the library while you finish everything. I have a few things I need to look over at my desk."

He did pour himself a glass of wine, and he did seat himself at his desk in the corner of the library. But he had a hard time concentrating on his work. He was rather keyed up tonight—at least, as keyed up as he ever got. He had had the most interesting conversation on the way home, and he couldn't seem to get it out of his head. When he finally managed to do so, his thoughts would inevitably stray to the girl in the kitchen. That cloudy black hair, those blue eyes, that smoky voice…He shook his head. Such thoughts would do him no good at all. There was no possible way Amy Miller could ever be interested in him. He was old enough to be the girl's father, for one thing; as a matter of fact, he thought he might be a couple of years older than her father. Then there was the fact that he was a far from handsome man, and a cripple. And what was more, he thought, it would probably be quite some time before Amy Miller became interested in any man again. From what he could gather, the boy who'd gotten her pregnant had been her first real love interest, and look at how that had turned out. She seemed to have moved on with remarkable swiftness, but he suspected that a girl of Amy's intelligence would be far more careful about opening her heart to any man again.

And for that matter, what was he doing having such thoughts about a girl who was still more child than woman, who was his employee, and whose child he was planning to sell? Gold had always prided himself on not becoming emotionally involved with anyone he did business with. He had made deals with many other young women, some as lovely as Amy, yet he had never been tempted by any of them. But then, most of those girls had been out to gain something for themselves, with little heed of the consequences that would occur. Amy Miller, however, seemed to think of everyone _but _herself. It was all most unsettling. For the first time, Gold began to seriously wonder if he had made a mistake.

But he didn't get very far into the thought before Amy appeared at the doorway, a slight, sweet smile on her lips that was still enough to render her utterly breathtaking. "Dinner is served, Mr. Gold," she said demurely.

As he made his careful way back to the kitchen, Mr. Gold decided he hadn't made a mistake after all. It was perfectly natural, he reasoned, that he would feel some attraction to Amy. After all, she was a lovely young woman, on the inside as well as the outside. She was the first person in Storybrooke he could remember who treated him with kindness. It would only be wrong if he tried to act upon these feelings, which he was certain he'd never do. He was stronger than that. In the meantime, he would enjoy her company, and if he sometimes found himself distracted by her…physical charms, he was only a man, wasn't he? There was no harm in looking. As long as he kept it firmly in his mind that this was only a temporary situation, he told himself, everything would be fine.

Once they were seated and eating their meal (which was every bit as delicious as the aroma had promised) he cast about in his mind for an interesting topic of conversation. He decided the encounter he'd had on his way home that evening would suffice.

"I had the most interesting conversation on my way home tonight," he began.

She bit. "Oh, really? With whom?"

He took a sip of wine before he answered, drawing it out a bit. "With Madame Mayor," he announced finally, watching closely for her reaction.

Amy knit her dark eyebrows. "Madame Mayor," she repeated. "What did she have to say?"

"Apparently someone apprised her of our…arrangement," he said, "and she's not at all happy about it."

Her eyes narrowed with confusion. "Who told her?" she asked. "And what business is it of hers, anyway?"

"I'm not really sure who told her," Gold admitted. "Perhaps Sheriff Graham let it slip. Then again, it could have been Sidney, that reporter from the Daily Mirror. I've often suspected that he was her little spy. He could easily have heard something around town, and I'm sure he would have rushed to report to her first thing."

She nodded. "That makes sense," she conceded. "But again, why should she care about our…arrangement?"

He folded his hands on the table and looked intently at her. "She seems to think you should have approached her first about your situation."

Now Amy was definitely confused. "I don't know why she would think that," she said. "I barely know the woman. I babysat for Henry several times in high school, but I certainly never got at all close to her. She would have been the last person I turned to for help, even if you hadn't come along first."

Gold could read between the lines of that little speech easily enough. "You don't care for Madame Mayor, do you?" He phrased it as a question, but he was sure he already knew the answer.

"No," Amy said bluntly. "I don't."

He merely nodded. She saw no censure in his face, only interest. "I see," he said. "Do you mind telling me why?"

Amy hesitated, then decided to spill it. "I can't stand the way she treats her son," she said. "Like I said, I used to babysit for Henry. He's such a good little kid…so bright, so imaginative…but she acts like he's nothing more than a nuisance to her."

Something flashed in Gold's eyes. She wasn't sure what it was, only that it looked slightly dangerous. "You don't think she…mistreats him or anything, do you?" he said, his voice deceptively calm.

She shook her head quickly. "No, no, nothing like that. I don't think she beats him or anything like that. If I thought that I would have told someone, even if she is the almighty mayor and could probably have skated out from any kind of charges. I don't think she especially neglects him, either. She does all the right things. It's just that…" she trailed off.

Mr. Gold leaned forward. This was more intriguing than he had imagined. "Just that what, dear?"

She was silent so long that he briefly wondered if she was going to respond. Then, as if she could hold it in no longer, it came bursting out.

"She reminds me of my father," she blurted. "Everything she does for Henry is just for show. But I don't think…" She took a deep breath, and then she let the shoe drop. "I don't think she loves him, any more than my father loved me."

Mr. Gold was nonplussed, a rarity for him. How should he respond to this? Should he let her know that he had often suspected the same thing himself?

He chose his words carefully. "I'm afraid I can see how that would be," he acknowledged. "Regina is a very…cold woman. I've often thought she let her career take precedence over motherhood."

"The worst part is that Henry knows it," Amy said. "He was just little when I first started babysitting for him…maybe five…but even then he knew it." She felt tears start in her eyes, but quickly blinked them away. She had done enough blubbering in front of Mr. Gold already. "At first he kept trying to figure out what he'd done wrong. He kept trying to think of ways to be the kind of son she wanted so she would be able to love him. And then…when nothing worked, he just seemed to stop caring."

Mr. Gold knew she was telling the story of Henry Mills, but he suspected that she might be telling the tale of her own childhood as well. He wondered if she was aware of this, and decided she probably was on some level. "It's a shame," he said gravely. "I've met Henry a few times. He seems to be a nice little fellow."

"Oh, he is," Amy agreed. "He was the sweetest little boy, and like I said, so bright and creative. We used to have so much fun when I went over to watch him. I used to think—" she smiled a bit sheepishly—"I used to think it would be great if our parents got together. Then even if our parents didn't care about us, at least Henry and I would have each other. I knew it would never happen, though. Madame Mayor had even less interest in dating than she did in Henry. If she ever were to date someone or get married, it wouldn't be for love; it would be a power alliance of some kind. And what kind of power could she gain from an insurance salesman?"

He thought about telling her she was wrong about Madame Mayor having no interest in dating. He was aware of a certain arrangement she had with Sheriff Graham, as were certain others of the town, such as Granny, who ran the B&B where the two had their "Saturday council meetings". But he decided there was no need to bring that up right now. That wasn't really dating, after all, so much as satisfying certain bodily needs. And that was not a subject he thought it wise to get into with this particular girl.

"That's the one thing that gives me pause about giving my baby up for adoption," she said.

That definitely got his attention. "The one thing that gives you pause?" he queried, trying to sound calm.

He must have succeeded, for Amy continued. "What if my baby were to end up with someone like Madame Mayor?" she clarified. "I always thought people who adopted did so because they wanted a child so badly. I thought surely anyone who wanted a child so much would be certain to love it with all their heart. But that doesn't seem to be the case with Madame Mayor. I mean, my father didn't really have a choice; he was pretty much stuck with me. But why would someone choose to adopt a child they weren't capable of loving? At least with me my baby would have love, even if it didn't have much of anything else."

At that moment Gold decided to do whatever he had to to keep Amy Miller from finding out that one of the "adoptions" he'd brokered had been that of Henry Mills. If she found out he'd been responsible for acquiring Henry for Madame Mayor, she would never trust him to help her place her baby for adoption. In all probability she would want nothing more to do with him, period. She would leave, and he would lose the child _and _the one person in Storybrooke who seemed to like him somewhat. He must be very careful now.

"There are different kinds of adoptions," he finally said. "I understand that the mayor's adoption of Henry was a closed one. The birth mother had no idea who was going to adopt her child. It doesn't have to be that way for you. Nowadays, it's expected that the birth mother play a role in choosing the adoptive parents. Why, in some cases the adoptive parents remain in contact with the birth mother, sending them pictures of the child and such. In a few cases the birth mother is even allowed to see the child from time to time."

She shook her head. "I don't think I could do that," she said. "That would be torture for me, to see the baby every once in a while knowing I could never really be its mother. I'm not even sure I could handle getting pictures and updates. If I do give the baby up, it will have to be a closed adoption. But I _would _feel better knowing the sort of family my baby was going to."

He nodded solemnly. "I can understand that," he said gently. "That could be arranged, too—for you to choose the baby's parents, and then have a closed adoption. Of course, in that case you probably wouldn't be able to meet the parents, but there are ways to make sure you choose the right parents for your child even under conditions of anonymity."

"If that's possible," Amy said, "I think that would be the best option for me. Like I said, any contact would be…too painful. But as long as I knew she was going to the best home there was…I could live with it."

Mr. Gold lifted his eyebrows. "'She'?" he asked with a small smile.

There was that becoming flush again. "I think it's a girl," she confessed. "Ever since I found out I was pregnant, I've just been sure it's a girl. Don't ask me why. It's still way too early to know, of course. But I just have a feeling."

His smile widened a little, but it was slightly sad. "You may be right, at that. You know what they say about mother's intuition."

Amy dropped her eyes briefly. When she looked up, there was a sheen of tears in them.

"I always wanted to have a little girl," she said softly. "Ever since I was just a little girl myself. I always wanted to have a daughter and name her Grace, after my mother."

A wave of sympathy washed over him. This time he didn't try to fight it. He reached across the table and took her hand.

"You will, dear," he said comfortingly. "Maybe it won't be this baby. But I told you yesterday that someday you'll get to be a mother on your terms. You'll have your little Grace one day."

The words were self-serving in a way. He wanted to keep clear in her mind that adoption was her best decision—her only decision, really. But on another level he hoped his words were true. He hoped that someday Amy would get the daughter she longed for. He was surprised to find these feelings in him, but perhaps it wasn't so surprising after all. Perhaps her kindness towards him was calling out his own long-dormant kindness.

But Mr. Gold was, first and foremost, a businessman. He felt sorry for the girl, but he wasn't going to let that sway him from his ultimate plan. After all he had invested in her, he was going to reap some sort of benefit. And in the end, the money he received for the child would outweigh the money he had spent on the mother.

Yes, he was going to be able to do this. He wasn't going to let his feelings for Amy get in the way of his plans. And if Regina made any more threats about telling the girl exactly how she had come to have Henry, well…there were ways to silence Regina. Money, most likely, would do the trick. If not, there were still other ways. Not murder, certainly; that was one thing he hadn't yet stooped to. But it was very foolish to attempt to blackmail someone who had plenty of dirt on you. He would remind her of this if necessary.

He leaned back in his chair and smiled at Amy. "That was a delicious dinner, dear," he said. She was glad to hear him say so, though she had suspected he enjoyed it. He had cleaned his plate and gone back for seconds, after all. "And by any chance is that dessert I smell in the kitchen?"

They had eaten their apple dumplings with vanilla ice cream (if she kept feeding him like this, Mr. Gold informed her gravely, but with a twinkle in his eye, he would have to have his suits let out) and she was just finishing cleaning up the kitchen when Sheriff Graham arrived with her belongings.

"Amy, dear, Sheriff Graham is here with your things," Mr. Gold informed her. "I'll have him take everything to your quarters. As soon as you're finished in here, you can go unpack. You're off duty for the rest of the night."

Amy smiled and thanked him. Hurriedly, she finished what little she had left to do. When she left the kitchen, Sheriff Graham was still there. He and Mr. Gold were standing in the foyer, having a whispered conference. Before Amy could get close enough to get the gist of the conversation, however, the men spotted her and abruptly stopped speaking. They turned to her with smiles that—just for a split second—looked pasted on. Then, almost in unison, their faces relaxed and the smiles became genuine.

"Am I interrupting anything?" she asked lightly.

"Not at all, dear," Mr. Gold assured her, perhaps a bit too hastily. "Sheriff Graham and I were just…discussing some town business."

"Hello, Amy," Sheriff Graham said in his Irish brogue that was almost—but not quite—as charming as Mr. Gold's Scottish lilt. "How are you doing?"

"Just fine," she replied, smiling at the handsome young sheriff who had been the crush object of nearly every girl in Storybrooke at one time, herself included. "Thank you for bringing my things, Sheriff Graham. I hope it didn't put you to too much trouble."

"Not at all," he said. "Your father—" He hesitated, seemingly trying to find the right words. "He wasn't very pleased, of course, but I had a warrant to retrieve your belongings. He didn't give me any trouble. " Nor had Joe Miller helped him in any way. Once the man realized there was nothing he could do to prevent his daughter's things being taken, he had stormed off, and the sheriff hadn't seen hide nor hair of him the rest of the time he was in the house. Sheriff Graham had had to pack the items from Amy's former room himself. He hoped he'd gotten everything, but was pretty sure he had. The furniture had to be left behind, of course, but he had cleared the room of everything else.

He hoped, too, Amy wouldn't inquire further about her father. He didn't want to have to tell her that the man hadn't asked about her, hadn't so much as mentioned her name. Whatever the falling out had been between Joe Miller and his daughter, it must have been major. Or maybe not. Graham had had the uncomfortable feeling from time to time that Joe Miller really didn't care much for his only child. Why, he wasn't sure. Amy seemed to be a sweet girl, and she was certainly a lovely one. But then, it really wasn't his business, was it? At least the girl seemed to be in a safe place for the time being (though he couldn't help wondering exactly how safe it could be under Mr. Gold's protection).

She didn't ask anything further. Probably she already knew what his answers would have been. "Well, thank you again, Sheriff Graham," she said. She turned to her employer. "Mr. Gold, I finished cleaning the kitchen. What time would you like to have your breakfast in the morning?"

He waved his hand. "Don't worry about that dear. You worked very hard today, and you've some unpacking to do. Sleep in tomorrow. Ashley will be here about ten, so you'll probably want to be up and about by then, but sleep as long as you like."

"Well…thank you," Amy said. Mr. Gold certainly wasn't treating her much like a maid, at least not yet. More like a…companion, maybe? He hadn't said a word about finding her at the diner with her friends that morning. Instead he had praised the housework she'd gotten done, raved over her cooking, and given her the rest of the night off. She hadn't imagined he would be this easy to work for. Then again, she _had _busted her butt all day once she'd left the diner. Maybe, as long as she got her work completed, he was prepared to be lenient.

"And thank you again, Sheriff," she said to Sheriff Graham. "Now if you'll excuse me, Mr. Gold was right. I have some unpacking to do."

As she left the foyer and headed in the direction of her little apartment, she heard the two men whispering again. Briefly she wondered what they were talking about, but quickly dismissed it from her mind. She could stay and try to figure it out, she supposed, but she didn't want to be caught eavesdropping. And anyway, it was probably just some boring town business, just as Mr. Gold had said.

In a way, it was. "Don't forget to tell Madame Mayor what I said," Mr. Gold warned as soon as he was sure the girl was out of earshot. "If she keeps quiet about…certain things, she could come out ahead in this. But if she persists in this blackmail, tell her she would do well to remember she has a few skeletons in her closet that I'm sure she wouldn't want to come out."

All Graham wanted was to get the hell out of there and head to the diner for a drink and some darts (at night, Granny's Diner doubled as the local watering hole). "I'll tell her, Mr. Gold," he promised.

Gold's smile was more of a smirk. "Thank you, Sheriff," he said silkily. "I'm sue you can persuade Regina to see reason. You two have such a…_intimate _relationship." It was all he could do not to laugh out loud when the young sheriff blanched. Gold laid a hand on the doorknob, indicating the meeting was over. "Good evening, Sheriff."

A couple of hours later, Gold was sitting in the library sipping a Scotch and soda and reading that day's issue of the Daily Mirror when he heard the strangest sound. It was a keening sort of sound, almost a wail, really, animal-like.

He frowned. That was odd. He would have dismissed the sound as a wolf or a coyote, but as far as he knew Storybrooke had neither. He cocked his head, listening for the sound again.

It came again momentarily. This time, though, it sounded much less like an animal and far more like a human in distress. He grew alarmed when he realized it was coming from the lower west wing.

He made for the rooms where Amy was staying with surprising haste for a man of his infirmity. When he reached the door to her quarters he debated for a split second whether to knock or not. Another wail from within decided him. He thrust open the door, certain he was going to find Amy on the floor in the throes of a miscarriage.

Relief coursed through him when he saw that she appeared to be all right…physically. Emotionally, however, he wasn't sure. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the combination bedroom and sitting area; the contents of the boxes Graham had brought over lay strewn all around her. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought the place had been ransacked by an intruder. Alarm bells rang in his head again. Was it possible the girl was suffering from some sort of nervous breakdown?

Then she lifted her face to him, and he was relieved to see it was relatively sane, though even more red and tear-streaked than it had been the previous day. "They're not here," she sobbed. "I've gone through every single one of these boxes, and they're not here."

Carefully he lowered himself to the floor beside her. "What, dear?" he asked in as mild a tone as he could manage (not easy considering his heart was going like a jackhammer). "What isn't there? Did Sheriff Graham forget something?"

"My m-mother's necklace," she hiccupped, "and my mother's ring. They were in my jewelry box. The jewelry box is here…the rest of my jewelry is in it…but my mother's things are gone. He must have taken them out."

Gold knew that the "he" she was referring to had to be her father. His disgust for the man reached a whole new level. It hadn't been enough to strike the girl, to fling the vilest words at her, to throw her out of the house. Apparently he had been spiteful enough to take the girl's only legacy of her mother, too. If Joe Miller had been before him at that moment, Gold would cheerfully have throttled the man.

"Oh, my dear," he said soothingly. "I'm so sorry. Are you absolutely sure? Could they maybe have slipped down in your jewelry box somehow and you just haven't seen them?"

She shook her head. "I thought about that. I dug around in every little drawer, every little pocket. Then I took the rest of my jewelry out and turned it upside down and shook it. They're not in there."

"Well, could they be somewhere else?" he pressed gently, trying vainly to calm her down.

"No," she wailed. "I always kept them in my jewelry box. I only ever wore them on special occasions. Oh, God, I almost put them on yesterday…but things happened so fast I didn't have a chance…and now they're gone! They're the only things I had of my mother's and they're _gone_!" She buried her face in her hands and wept.

He didn't think; he just acted. He slipped an arm around the girl's shaking shoulders and murmured "Hush, dear. It's all right. Everything is going to be all right." He barely registered the fact that the girl was clad only in a pair of thin white baby-doll pajamas with blue ribbon trim. Any other time, being in such close proximity to this girl while she was wearing so little…well, it would have put his determination not to cross any lines with her to the test, to say the least. But she was in such anguish that he felt only the desire to comfort her, to stop those awful wrenching sobs (and, yes, to keep her from getting so worked up she might put herself in danger of losing the baby).

"Amy, dear, you need to calm down," he said gently, rocking her a bit. "I know you're upset, and you've every right to be. But this isn't good for you or the baby, dear. You need to try to calm down."

She did try. She took several deep breaths; the sobs slowed. She lifted tear-filled eyes to him.

"Mr. Gold, why would he do such a thing?" she whispered. "The necklace and the ring…they're precious to me, but they're not of any real value. Why would he take them from me? Does he really hate me that much, that he could take the only things I had of my mother away from me?"

"Darling, I don't know," he said, smoothing her damp hair away from her forehead. "The only thing I can think is that your father has something deeply wrong with him. But that's just it, Amy; the problem is in him, not you. You're a dear girl, and you don't deserve any of the things that have happened to you recently. I'm sorry your father has hurt you so much, even now, when you're away from him. But I promise you this, Amy: as long as you're under my roof, your father will never hurt you again."

Her face was buried in his shoulder, so she didn't see the hard, cold expression in his dark eyes. If she had, she would have understood why Mr. Gold was a man people feared. But all she knew was that his words were kind, his voice was soft, and his arm around her felt infinitely soothing. Her sobs finally stopped completely, and soon gave way to the gentle, even breathing of sleep.

With some effort he managed to rouse her enough to get her to her bed. As he draped a light blanket over her, he made a point of not noticing the lean, almost boyish body barely covered by the scanty pajamas, the long, slender arms and legs. Her pregnancy was not at all apparent yet; he wondered fleetingly how her body would change as the months passed before clamping the thought off surgically. He wasn't going to think about such things. Nor was he going to recall the way she had felt resting against his shoulder.

Before he could not have any more of these thoughts he pulled the blanket up to her chin. There. Now she looked like nothing more than an exhausted child who had cried herself to sleep. Which, of course, was exactly what she was. And he wasn't going to let himself forget that.

Nor, he promised himself grimly as he left the room, was he going to forget the source of the girl's tears. Her father. He didn't know when or how just yet, but he was going to make the man pay for everything he'd ever done to that girl in there.

"Yes, I promise you, dear," he whispered, his elegant hands clenching and unclenching as he spoke. "He's never going to hurt you again."

**So there's Chapter 4. I promised Mr. Gold would be onstage during most of it, and by my count he was in every scene! Now if only the writers of OUAT would get the same idea…**

**So there are definitely some feelings between my OC and the nefarious pawnbroker. How it will go, though, I'm not exactly sure yet. I have two possible endings in mind, one dark, one fairly happy. Right now I'm leaning towards the fairly happy ending, but who knows? I am going to try to finish this story before OUAT comes back on, since Rumpel's actual backstory likely won't fit with what I've dreamed up. Speaking of which, I know it's kind of odd the whole story has been set in Storybrooke so far, but never fear, there will be an interlude set in Fairytale before it's all over.**

**Once again, I own only my OC. And once again, mad love to my readers and reviewers. **


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

A few months passed the way they usually did in Storybrooke; that is to say, uneventfully. As summer became fall, very little of importance, good or bad, befell the citizens of the little Maine town.

Amy and Mr. Gold settled into a routine. She cleaned the house, which she had, as he suspected she would, come to love as though it were her very own. Ashley still came in a couple of days a week to do some of the more arduous tasks, such as moving the heavier pieces of furniture, and Amy looked forward to the days when her friend came. They were usually able to complete the housework fairly quickly and would spend the rest of the day sitting and talking, or watching movies, or the other things they'd always done together. Occasionally they would go into town and visit Granny and Ruby at the diner, mostly on the days when there were other errands to run like grocery shopping or dropping the dry cleaning off. Ashley was much less nervous about cleaning Mr. Gold's house now that Amy was there, and as a result had fewer catastrophes, but increasingly Amy began to think of herself as the main housekeeper.

Aside from her sorties into town with Ashley, her regular errands, and of course her trips to the doctor, Amy seldom went into Storybrooke. This was by choice. Mr. Gold was very lenient about her hours and was always telling her to take a night off and go out with her friends, but she found that she preferred to stay close to what she had begun to think of as "home". Always a loner, now entire days would pass when she saw no one but Mr. Gold, and that suited her fine. She wasn't bored. She often walked in the woods surrounding Mr. Gold's house or along the river behind it. On the days she didn't feel like walking and the weather was fine, she would sit on the back porch and read. On the days when the weather wasn't so good, she did her reading curled up on the antique sofa in the library that had turned out to be surprisingly comfortable.

As Mr. Gold had encouraged, Amy had indeed availed herself of his library. Mr. Gold was astonished to discover that she was something of a speed-reader and had a near-photographic memory to boot. It wasn't uncommon to see her curled up on the sofa just beginning one of the leather-bound volumes, then walk by an hour later and see that she was halfway through it. Most of their dinner conversations now centered on what she was reading. He had almost always read whatever she was reading at the moment, and they enjoyed trading insights about the stories and characters.

One of the first books she chose from his library had been _Jane Eyre. _She had read it years before, in middle school, and had liked it, but now it struck a new chord with her. She couldn't help but see the parallels between the story and her own situation. The young woman alone in the world, thrust suddenly into a new role in a beautiful house, owned by a wealthy, mysterious man…of course, Mr. Gold wasn't hiding an insane wife in the attic (she should know; she had been up there a few times) and Ashley was no Grace Poole, but the similarities were uncanny. Amy was amused to realize that she had more or less stepped into the pages of a Gothic novel. This was one insight she chose not to share with Mr. Gold. For most Gothic novels, including _Jane Eyre_, ended with the young penniless heroine marrying the mysterious, dashing older man. That, she knew, was where her ending would differ.

Amy knew what people in town probably thought about her and Mr. Gold's "arrangement", but Mr. Gold had been a perfect gentleman the entire time she had been in his house. He had never said anything untoward. He had never touched her except by accident, like when his hand brushed hers as he handed her his breakfast dishes one morning. True, it seemed he was always following her around with his eyes, but she never saw anything lustful in his gaze. She assumed it was just the novelty of having another person to watch after living alone for so long. It honestly never crossed her mind that he might ever be interested in her as a woman.

But Amy was a deep sleeper, especially since her pregnancy. She didn't know that many nights—most nights, even—Mr. Gold would come into her room and watch her sleep. The first few times he had simply stood and watched, barely daring to breathe in case she woke. Then one night he had come in to discover she had kicked all her blankets off, and was curled on her side in a shivering ball. Before he thought, he had gathered the blankets and tucked them around her. When he realized what he was doing he froze. Surely now she would wake up, and she would probably assume the worst. He tried to think of an excuse. He would say that he had been investigating a strange noise. Would she buy that? Maybe. He cast about in his mind for other excuses, but none came. This frustrated him. He was normally the consummate master of thinking on his feet. What was it about this girl that so often discombobulated him?

But she didn't wake. That was when he realized how deep a sleeper she really was. After that, hardly a night passed when he didn't make his nocturnal visits to her room. He never did anything that could really be considered improper; master of manipulation though he was, he drew the line at physically forcing himself on a defenseless girl. And he could hardly imagine the girl offering herself to him willingly. So, mainly, he just watched. If she had kicked the blankets off he tucked her back in. Occasionally he would smooth her hair back from her face; it was just as downy soft as he had imagined. And as her pregnancy progressed and her stomach began to rise under the blankets, he would sometimes find himself laying a protective hand on the small mound of her belly. At times when he did this he could nearly see another hand over his own, almost in pentimento, a hand as long and graceful as his but nowhere near as well cared for, a hand with long, sharp, shiny nails, a hand that seemed to sparkle with some glittery substance. At these times, he would feel the strangest sense of déjà vu. There was something so familiar about this girl, about her face in the moonlight, her body under the bedclothes. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had known her before, somewhere, somehow.

Amy was a deep sleeper, but she was also a very vivid dreamer. Mr. Gold never knew this. His visits to her room always occurred well after she was past the REM phase and into deep sleep. He never knew about the dreams she had about him, or rather some version of him.

The dreams were slightly different each time, but the basic premise was the same. In them, she was with a man she assumed was Mr. Gold. The man had Mr. Gold's features, but in other ways he was markedly dissimilar. His hair was the same length, only wavier and much grayer; most times it was downright unkempt. Mr. Gold wore his hair long, but it was always smooth and neat, never a strand out of place. The hands were as slender and fine as his, but instead of the short, neatly trimmed nails she knew the long fingers ended in greenish-gold talons.

But the most striking differences were his eyes and skin. In her dreams, the Mr. Gold-man's eyes were not quite human. The irises were unusually large, with very little white showing and sometimes none at all, and instead of Mr. Gold's chocolate brown they were a murky caramel color. Indeed, they resembled the eyes of a lynx or some other animal more than those of a human. Oddly, Amy wasn't alarmed by this in the dreams. Nor was she surprised by his skin, which seemed to be coated with some sort of gold dust.

It wasn't the man himself who alarmed her in the dreams, but what he was doing—or rather, what _they _were doing. For in every dream she could recall, she and the Mr. Gold-man were making love.

Sometimes it seemed to be night, and they were in a room lit only by firelight. Sometimes it was daylight, and they were outside in the grass beside a clear rushing stream. Sometimes the sex was slow and tender and passionate; often it was frantic, almost rough, but no less intense. Amy often found herself doing things to and with the Mr. Gold-man that she had never thought about in real life. Some of the things she hadn't even realized _could_ be done. And in every dream, she thrashed and moaned and often cried aloud as she had never done beneath the boy who had fathered her child.

Amy would wake from these dreams sweating and gasping, not a few times still in the throes of an orgasm—she, who had never been able to climax through intercourse, only when Todd would use his hands and mouth on her. He had been amused by this at first, reassuring her that it was no big deal and gave them something to look forward to. Later it had annoyed and frustrated him. Finally, he had given up trying to make her come at all.

But that wasn't a problem for the Mr. Gold-man. No matter where they were, what position they were in (and that was another thing; judging from his flexibility, the Mr. Gold of her dreams obviously had no need of a cane) he had no trouble at all bringing her to and beyond the boiling point. Her orgasm would always trigger his own, and he would empty himself into her, shouting just as loudly as she did and sometimes louder, often biting her neck or capturing her lips in a searing kiss. Usually what they shouted was the other's name, but of course she didn't know Mr. Gold's first name, and whatever he called her wasn't "Amy". It was something similar, but once she awoke she could never remember what it was, nor she could remember the name she had called him.

The first time she had one of these dreams she was absolutely mortified when she woke, wondering how she could ever face Mr. Gold in the morning. For she had seen her partner's naked body in all its glory—and had had her hands and mouth all over it—and, skewed though it was, she was fairly certain that was what the real Mr. Gold's body looked like under those perfectly tailored suits. Even in her humiliation Amy felt herself growing wet at the thought of that small, lean, wiry body that had done so many unspeakable and wonderful things to hers. _No, no, no! _

There was no more sleep for Amy that first night. She sat up until dawn puzzling over the dream, and what it meant, and how she could put it out of her mind when she next had to face her employer. Finally, she chalked it all up to hormones. She had read that pregnant women often had a high sex drive during the early stages. She had also read that very strange and vivid dreams were common during pregnancy. When you combined these two facts, the dream made perfect sense. Mr. Gold had been literally gold in the dream because that was her subconscious mind's literal interpretation of him. She had read of cases where women had lurid sex dreams about their OB-GYNs. Dr. Dockery was a little too grandfatherly for even her subconscious mind apparently, so it had chosen the next best thing: the man who had literally taken her in off the street. Perhaps there was some sort of gratitude mixed up in there, too. She truly appreciated everything Mr. Gold was doing for her and had been trying to think of ways to repay him ever since she first moved in; evidently her subconscious believed that "making sweet sweet love" to the man (as Ruby had jokingly put it) would be a fine way to compensate him for all he had done for her.

But that was silly. Mr. Gold had never once shown any sort of attraction to her, unless you counted his keen interest in her mind. In point of fact, she had never seen him show signs of attraction to anyone. She'd never even seen him steal a glance at Ruby in one of her outrageous outfits, when she'd seen every other man in town from little Henry on up do so. Briefly, she wondered if he might be gay, but quickly discounted that. She couldn't say why, she just instinctively knew that he wasn't. Rather, he seemed to be uninterested in sex of any kind, with either gender. She didn't think of him as asexual so much as above the pleasures of the flesh.

And here was the kicker: even if Mr. Gold _was_ interested in the joys of fleshly congress, why would he be attracted to her? A man of his wealth, power and sophistication could have any woman he chose. The mayor, for example. She was an equal match for Mr. Gold in every way. Amy wondered how it was that the two of them hadn't entered into some sort of alliance long before now. Although, like Mr. Gold, the mayor seemed to have little to no interest in sexual matters (Mr. Gold had never clued her in to the mayor's arrangement with Sheriff Graham). Still, there were other women in town much prettier than Amy, probably as intelligent, certainly better off financially. Even if he didn't want to risk gossip by having a hot affair with a Storybrooke citizen, there were other towns, other women. Why, out of all the women he could have just with a lift of those eyebrows or a flash of those dimples, would he choose a nineteen-year-old bookworm who was also the town fallen woman?

With these thoughts in mind it was easy for Amy to decide how to handle the situation. If she ever felt the slightest sexual tug towards the man, she would keep certain key points in her mind: A. She was hormonal, and therefore not in her right mind. B. He was her employer. C. He had never shown the slightest bit of attraction to her. If she kept these points firmly in her head at all times, Amy reasoned, she would be able to keep her composure around the man and not make a total ass of herself.

It was a good plan in theory, but putting it into practice was harder. When she went into the kitchen that morning to fix Mr. Gold's breakfast, the man himself was already there. Though it was just past six, he was already fully dressed and looked as elegant and put-together as always. At his cheerful "Good morning, dear," Amy was instantly catapulted to the events of her dream the night before; specifically, a vignette in which he had had her legs around his shoulders and was plunging into her with wild abandon.

As the blood suffused her face and neck it was all she could do to mumble, "Morning, Mr. Gold," hearing over her words the screams of ecstasy he'd torn from her throat in the dream.

He tilted his head and looked at her penetratingly (oh, God…penetrating). "Amy, are you all right?" She heard the question, but underneath it she heard his wild laughter that had spiraled into a cackle at her first soul-shattering orgasm.

She felt a terrible urge to grab the older man, slam him against the kitchen table, and crush her lips against his. Instead, she turned her back to him and walked over to the fridge. Not facing him made things much easier, and she was able to reply. "I'm fine. Just had a restless night." She opened the fridge and stared in at the contents. The eggs and bacon were in their usual spots, but she made no move to grab them. She needed a moment to regroup, and the chilly air felt good on her feverish skin.

He frowned. Amy wasn't acting like herself. She was always kind of quiet first thing in the morning, but today she was…abrupt. It was almost as if she were angry at him or something. Had he done anything to upset her? He racked his brain but couldn't come up with anything. He hadn't made his usual stealthy visit to her last night, so it couldn't be that. Perhaps she was unwell. She was spending an inordinate amount of time with her head stuck in the refrigerator, as if she saw something quite interesting in there. Just as he was about to go to her, she finally grabbed the bacon and eggs and closed the door.

"You're sure you're all right, dear?" he repeated. Amy could hear nothing in his tone but concern…an almost fatherly concern…and she was able to turn to him again and flash a tired smile.

"I'm sure. Like I said, I had a restless night. I don't think I got more than a couple of hours of sleep." She moved toward the stove to begin preparing breakfast.

He was somewhat reassured, but not entirely. She sounded more like herself now, but he could see the dark circles under her eyes. And her skin was flushed the way it was when she was embarrassed, but what in their interaction of the past few minutes could have possibly embarrassed her?

He surprised himself and Amy by moving quickly to her side. Even with his limp, he was capable of moving fast when it suited him. She nearly dropped the carton of eggs when he felt her forehead. "You're warm," he said. "Might you be coming down with something?"

She was struggling just to breathe. Having him this close to her, being able to smell his clean, somehow woodsy scent, especially the feel of his cool hand on her hot forehead, threatened to undo her entirely. She forced herself to think of cold showers, morning sickness, Richard Nixon, anything that wasn't remotely erotic. This helped enough for her to catch her breath and answer him.

"I think I might be," she said. It wasn't untrue. She _did_ feel as though she was coming down with something.

He took the bacon and eggs from her and laid them aside. "Go back to bed," he ordered. "Take it easy today. Don't do any housework; just try to relax. Catch up on your sleep, if you can. I'll come home and check on you when I close the shop for lunch. If you're not feeling any better I'll take you in to see Dr. Dockery."

Amy had had so much success with the unsexy thoughts that she dared to turn and look at him, a denial on her lips. It was a fatal error. _Oh, no, Mr. Gold, I'm really fine, I'll take a nap later and I'm sure I'll be back to normal after that…_she had the words all planned, but they died in her throat as she looked at him. The jowly face of the 37th President of the United States gave way to the image of her sliding her mouth from the Mr. Gold-man's neck on down the length of his body, until she finally came to the juncture of his thighs and wrapped her lips around…

She realized she needed to get out of there pronto. "OK," she managed to gasp before she literally fled the kitchen.

Mr. Gold stared after her, an expression of bemusement on his face that no one in Storybrooke would have ever thought possible. The confusion cleared as he realized she had probably retreated to vomit. She had mentioned that she occasionally suffered from morning sickness. The poor dear…he hoped this wasn't going to be a difficult pregnancy for her, at least physically. Emotionally, it was probably already far too late for that. But he sensed a reservoir of strength inside the girl. He had no doubt that she would bear her pregnancy and the events afterward with resilience.

In any case, if he was going to have breakfast before he opened the shop, he had better leave now in time to grab a quick bite at the diner. Whistling a jaunty tune (no one in Storybrooke would have believed the sight of Mr. Gold whistling either), he left the house for another day of wheeling and dealing.

…

Amy did manage to get some sleep before he came home at noon, and her slumber was mercifully dreamless. When he returned on his lunch break to check on her as promised, he was pleased to find her up and about and entirely herself again. The feverishness of the morning was gone, too. Even so, he bade her take the rest of the day off and not worry about getting dinner. He would bring something home.

After that first day it got easier. Even the most lurid and erotic dreams become commonplace if they occur often enough. As time went by, Amy was able to do what she had promised herself and separate the carnal bliss of her dreams from her daily interactions with Mr. Gold. For his part, Mr. Gold was able to divorce his own nocturnal visits to the girl's quarters from his contact with her in the daylight hours. Their relationship continued much as it had before.

Other things occurred in Storybrooke that fall, though Amy was unaware of most of them. Henry Mills began fourth grade. His teacher was one Mary Margaret Blanchard, who, a decade before, had been Amy's own fourth-grade teacher, although the woman was only in her mid-twenties. Had she been more involved in the goings-on of the town and had her memories of childhood been less vague, Amy would undoubtedly have questioned this; however, her mind was occupied with weightier matters.

Miss Blanchard, a kind and discerning soul, sensed the unhappiness and loneliness of the mayor's son. In an effort to alleviate the boy's sadness, she gave him a book of fairy tales, never dreaming of the events she was setting in motion.

Autumn settled upon Storybrooke. Amy's pregnancy progressed into the second trimester. The morning sickness disappeared entirely, much as Dr. Dockery had predicted it would. She continued her walks and the lighter housekeeping with his blessing, and felt as healthy and strong as she ever had. Her belly began to round slightly, and her bras were getting uncomfortably tight. She had to wear her loosest tops and keep her jeans unbuttoned. She attempted to keep this from Mr. Gold, but of course he noticed; Mr. Gold noticed everything. In his inimitable way he provided a solution: one night he simply brought home a catalogue from an upscale maternity boutique in Boston, told Amy to select the things she thought would do, and ordered her choices without comment. She didn't argue with him, and when the items she had chosen arrived she simply thanked him and went on about her business.

He was pleased by this, pleased that she no longer struggled against accepting his largesse. He still hadn't broached the subject of selecting an adoptive family, although he knew he would have to before much longer. He had already begun putting out tentative feelers, searching for wealthy childless couples in the Northeastern area. Several prospects had come to his attention, but after careful consideration he had rejected each. He was determined to find just the right family for Amy Miller's child: a family who could provide for the baby's every material need and want (as well as Amy's compensation and his own stipend), and also were truly desperate for a child, and would cherish the little one as it deserved. So far he hadn't found a couple who met both criteria, but he wasn't unduly concerned. There was still plenty of time.

He was also giving serious thought to Amy's future once she gave up the child. For his part, he would have been perfectly happy for their arrangement to continue as it was after the birth and adoption. But, he knew, that wouldn't be fair to Amy. A girl of her intelligence and other qualities deserved more opportunities than working as a housekeeper. It was bad enough that she would have to give up the child she so obviously wanted to keep; she shouldn't have to give up her whole life. Of course, she wouldn't be able to leave Storybrooke and make a fresh start elsewhere, although that would undoubtedly be the best thing for her. But there were ways for her to have a decent and productive life within the town. With the compensation of the yet-to-be-chosen adoptive parents, as well as the bank account he had quietly opened for her in lieu of a paycheck, she would be able to afford a nice place to live. If she chose, she could also obtain a college degree (online, of course). He hoped she decided to do so. It would be a shame for such a fine mind to go to waste. She could teach, perhaps, or work at the library. Eventually, she would meet a man who would truly love her, not just use her for his own ends and abandon her when he no longer had any use for her. She would marry him, and finally she would be able to have the child she longed for.

He found he could hardly stand the thought of this. But he dismissed it as silly sentiment. There was no way a girl like Amy could ever want a man like him, more than twice her age, infirm, hated by the whole town. It would be enough for him to see her living her life contentedly. It would have to be enough. In Storybrooke, there were no truly happy endings. The best one could hope for was peace and comfort, and even this didn't come without sacrifice.

…

One night when Amy was in her fifth month, Mr. Gold didn't come home at his usual time of half-past six. At first she was surprised, but not concerned. Before she had come to live in his home and work for him, she knew he had often kept his shop open past the posted hours. Since she had been there, though, there had been few nights when he hadn't closed promptly at six and hurried home. This touched her, somehow, the thought that she had made his home a pleasant enough place that he was eager to return to it. Still, every once in a while he had stayed open late, or had a business engagement after hours. But he always called when this was the case. He didn't call on this night.

At seven, when he still hadn't returned or called, Amy put the beef stew she had made for that night's meal in the refrigerator. At seven-thirty, she began to be annoyed. By eight, her annoyance had given way to anger. She called the shop and got no answer. She called his cell phone and got his voicemail. She managed to leave a pleasant enough message: "Mr. Gold, it's Amy. I hope everything's OK. I don't remember you saying you had a meeting or anything tonight, but maybe it's just pregnancy brain. I'll probably be going to bed soon, but there's beef stew in the fridge and I made some molasses cookies today. See you in the morning."

By nine, there was still no word from him. Now furious, Amy reheated a large bowl of beef stew for herself and ate five molasses cookies for dessert. How dare he be nearly three hours late without a word of explanation? Even her father had been more considerate. Well, actually he hadn't. But he had never been home at a regular time, and by the time Amy was a teenager she had known not to wait up for him. She had thought Mr. Gold was different, but apparently not. She was especially upset because she had just finished Dickens' _Bleak House _and had looked forward to discussing it with him over dinner. Maybe Ruby was right; maybe all men, deep down, were just assholes.

By nine-thirty, Amy's fury had been replaced by concern. Something was wrong. It had to be. Maybe all men were assholes, but Mr. Gold was a meticulous asshole. If he had known he wasn't going to be home at the usual time, he would have let her know somehow. If he couldn't call for some reason, he would have had someone else call, or come to inform her. What if he'd had a heart attack or something at his shop? What if he'd been in an accident on the way home? She almost began to cry at the thought of Mr. Gold crumpled behind his counter or lying hurt in a ditch. She didn't though; when her morning sickness had abated, so had her easy tears. She wasn't nearly as emotional as she had been during the earlier months of her pregnancy.

At ten, she called the shop and his cell again, with no answer from either. Amy gave in to temptation and called the hospital. She didn't say who she was; she only asked if a middle-aged man had been brought in that evening for any reason. She didn't give the receptionist any specific information. She couldn't. While she was on the line with Storybrooke General, Amy realized she didn't know her employer's first name, or his exact age. More than forty and less than fifty was her best guess. It proved to be academic anyway; no one had been admitted to the hospital that night. As Amy thanked the receptionist and hung up, she was seized with a chill that wasn't entirely due to her concern for Mr. Gold. How could she have agreed to work for the man—and live under his roof!—while knowing so little about him?

By ten-thirty, she was dissolved in tears on the antique sofa in the library. She knew, she just _knew, _that Mr. Gold was dead. She wept for the loss of the man who had been so kind to her, for the man she had in her more fanciful moments believed she could love. More pragmatically, she also wept for herself. If her benefactor was dead, what on earth would become of her…and her baby? This thought led to an entirely unproductive grieving session for the child she already loved so, yet knew she wouldn't be able to keep.

But by the time the clock in the library had chimed eleven, the weeping had given way to the intestinal fortitude Mr. Gold had credited her with. Something had befallen Mr. Gold, and lying around crying wasn't going to help either of them. Amy determined that she was going to go and look for him. She would drive into Storybrooke, checking every curve and ditch along the way. If she hadn't come upon him by the time she had reached town, she would go straight to the pawnshop. If he wasn't there, she would go to the sheriff's office. If she _did _come upon him somewhere between the house and the sheriff's office, well, she would cross that bridge when she got to it.

Amy was in the foyer, shrugging into the maternity jacket she had ordered from the boutique in Boston, the keys to the XL in her hand, when the front door opened and Mr. Gold strolled in as if it was just any other evening and he wasn't four and a half hours late without a word of explanation.

Although it had been a long day, he looked as impeccable as ever. His longish hair was slightly messy, but that could have been from the wind that had recently picked up outside. He began to greet her with his customary "Good evening, dear," but found the air knocked out of him when she hurled herself into his arms.

"Amy," he gasped when he finally regained his breath. "Dear, whatever is the matter?"

Her tears had burst forth again with her immense relief. "Mr. Gold, where have you been?" she cried against his suit jacket. "I've been so worried…so _scared_…I called the shop, I called your cell, but I couldn't get an answer…I even called the hospital…what happened?"

Inexplicably, now that she knew he was all right she wanted nothing more than to beat the living hell out of him. "Why didn't you _call?_" she cried accusingly. Without warning, she pulled away from him and began to pummel at him with her small fists.

The blows barely hurt, but he shielded himself from them anyway. "Amy, dear, calm down," he pleaded. "I'm so sorry, darling. It didn't occur to me that you'd be so worried. I meant to call, but things were happening so fast…and I didn't realize my phone was in the car…AMY, STOP IT!"

His last words were a shout as he grasped her shoulders and shook her firmly, but not roughly. The raised voice and the shake had the desired effect. Amy's hands dropped to her sides and she goggled at him uncomprehendingly. In the back of her mind she thought: _That's almost how he sounds in the dreams._

But the thought was forgotten almost as soon as it occurred. She could only stare at him with a mix of relief, rage, and confusion.

He forced his hands to relax their grip on her shoulders. Right then he wanted nothing more than to pull her back to him and hold her…just hold her. The rest could come later, if she wanted, but right now he wanted nothing more than to feel her pressed into him again. The warm scant length of her felt so familiar, so comforting. But once he gauged her expression he knew that if there was ever going to be a time for him to just take her in his arms, it wasn't now. With a tremendous effort, he slipped into the role of Mr. Gold, employer and avuncular figure.

"Let's go into the kitchen, dear," he said in his gentle yet firm voice with which he could persuade her to do almost anything. "I'll make us some tea, and I'll explain what happened tonight."

The kind but commanding tone worked as it always had. Amy allowed herself to be led into the kitchen and sat at the small table. He put the kettle on and found the Earl Grey in the cabinet above the stove. If she noticed how his hands were shaking as he busied himself preparing the tea, she gave no sign. Odd, he thought, how he had managed to remain perfectly composed during the events of the evening, yet had almost lost control as soon as he entered his own home. It wasn't like him. There was no doubt about it, something about this girl brought out the deeply buried emotions in him.

Neither of them spoke until the tea was ready. He poured the Earl Grey into two solid ceramic mugs (he didn't trust himself or Amy with a delicate china teacup right at the moment) and brought the mugs to the table. He set one on front of her, and then took a seat opposite her with the other mug clasped firmly in both hands.

"Drink some," he told her. It wasn't a request. Numbly, she brought the mug to her lips and sipped gingerly at the scalding liquid. It burned her tongue but calmed her nerves. She began to realize just how foolishly she'd acted.

"I'm sorry," she said almost inaudibly.

"No, dear," he said, taking a sip from his own mug. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I should have realized you would be worried. The time got away from me, but that's no excuse. You're in a delicate condition; I should have realized you'd be upset. I wasn't thinking."

Now that she was relatively calm, she was finally able to voice the thought at the forefront of her mind.

"What _happened, _Mr. Gold?"

He sighed, twirling his mug in his hands, trying to figure out a way to put it so as not to upset her further.

"Henry Mills ran away from home tonight," he began. At her gasp, he raised one hand. "No, it's all right. He's home now, safely in his bed. Apparently he managed to track down his biological mother, and he went to find her. A woman named Emma Swan; she's been living in Boston. She's the one who brought him home."

This was too much information to digest all at once. She needed him to walk her through it step by step. "Henry ran away?"

He remembered then that she had babysat for the mayor's son on numerous occasions, and had a special bond with him. Mentally, he kicked himself for not recalling this sooner. "Well…I wouldn't say he ran away so much as went on a day trip. Like I said, he somehow tracked down the woman who gave birth to him—"

Uncharacteristically, Amy interrupted. "He found his birth mother? But how? I thought you said it was a closed adoption!"

He was mildly peeved at the interruption but in light of the circumstances he decided to let it slide. "I'm not sure. No one is. But even with closed adoptions there can be loopholes, and Henry is a…_resourceful _boy, as you undoubtedly know. In any case, there seems to be no doubt that this Emma Swan is in fact the woman who gave birth to him and placed him for adoption."

"And she brought him back here? To the mayor?" Amy had a hard time fathoming this. If her child showed up in ten years, she knew her first instinct would not be returning her (or him) to the adoptive parents. Rather, if her child were so unhappy she (he) felt the need to seek out the mother who had given her (or him) up, her first thought would be to flee with the child somewhere they could never be found. But then, she realized, that would be a foolish and dangerous thing to do. She hoped, if she ever found herself in such a situation, that she would be able to do the responsible thing and contact the child's adoptive family. Perhaps they could get to the source of the child's unhappiness and some sort of livable compromise could be reached. However, if her child came to be in the clutches of a woman like Madame Mayor, she couldn't picture any sort of civil resolution.

"Yes, she did. She brought the child straight home, apparently had a few drinks with the mayor, and then…" He hesitated, debating whether to tell her the rest of the story.

"_What_?" Amy breathed. The tea, the anger, the near hysteria were all forgotten. She had to hear the rest of this.

"Well, she had a wreck right at the city limits. DUI, it seems. She is currently residing in one of the jail cells at the sheriff's office."

Amy shook her head, trying to take it all in. Poor Henry. She knew instinctively why he had gone to find his birth mother; he had finally been unable to handle the strain of living with an adoptive mother who had no love for him. She couldn't blame the little guy. Actually, she had to admire his courage. There weren't many ten-year-olds who would have the guts to board a bus to a major city four hours away and introduce themselves to a woman they'd never met, a woman who had given them up at birth. And then to have the woman return him to Storybrooke and the cold mayor…and _then _to have the woman involved in an alcohol-related car accident almost immediately after…Henry must be devastated. What kind of a woman was this Emma Swan?

"So that's where you've been all this time," she finally said.

"Yes. When Henry's teacher realized he was missing, she called Sheriff Graham. I happened to be at the sheriff's office on an unrelated matter and offered to help look for the boy. We searched everywhere we could imagine he might be, but of course there was nothing. Then Dr. Hopper—he's been counseling Henry for a while, as you may know—had the idea that the boy might have gone to try to find his birth mother. We went to the bus station, and sure enough, a child matching Henry's description had boarded a bus to Boston earlier this morning." Mr. Gold was a little amazed by this. Like Amy, he couldn't imagine a ten-year-old performing such a daring act. The Mayor's son was a most unusual boy. Gold thought in passing that he'd like to get to know him a little better. Moreover, he was amazed that the boy had actually been able to _leave. _Of course he had been back in less than a day's time, but still…that never happened in Storybrooke. No citizen of the town ever left it, not for good.

Maybe Henry Mills had never had any intention of leaving for good, though. Maybe he had simply wanted to meet this Emma Swan and bring her back to Storybrooke…but for what purpose? He could guess easily enough why the boy would want to leave Storybrooke and locate his birth mother; but why would he want to come _back?_

Well, that was easily explained too, he realized. He _hadn't _wanted to come back; Emma Swan had _brought _him back. And judging from her unfortunate accident later that evening, she had had no intention of remaining in town. Her car had literally crashed into the "Welcome to Storybrooke" sign. She had obviously been hightailing it right back to Boston. Once she had sobered up and gotten the necessary repairs to her car, she would hightail it out of town for good.

This was what his logical mind told him, but the other, deeper part of his mind wondered. It was odd that the accident had occurred _just _as she was about to reach the city limits. That was the sort of thing that would happen to a Storybrooke citizen who was trying to flee. But an outsider? They had no trouble coming and going. Perhaps this Emma Swan wasn't as much of an outsider as she seemed.

_Emma…_the name rang a faint bell, somehow. Not because he had known her when he "arranged" Henry's adoption, of that he was quite certain. He had never known anything of the boy's biological mother, except that she had signed away her rights at his birth. One of his "associates" in the Southwest had contacted him with the news of a healthy newborn baby boy who had been placed for adoption. The mayor had come to him several months before that and announced her wish to adopt a child, quickly and quietly, without having to wade through the mess of legal red tape that adoptions through the state always produced. Somehow his "associate" had managed to get the child out of Arizona (Gold never knew exactly how, nor did he ask) and had brought him to Maine, where Gold had turned him over to the mayor in exchange for a hefty sum and several favors to be called in at later dates. And that had been that.

No, there was no way he had known Emma Swan before. Just as there was no way he had known Amy Miller before. Yet he couldn't shake the feeling that he had known them both at some point. Furthermore, he couldn't shake the feeling that both young women were going to change his life in ways he had never thought possible.

But that was ridiculous. How could he have possibly known either of them at any point in his life, given that Miss Swan was at least fifteen years his junior and Amy was younger than that? By the time they were both born, he had been well ensconced in Storybrooke. He had seen Amy around town through the years, yes, but always from a distance. There was no rational reason he should feel the familiarity he had felt towards her from their very first meeting. But he had, and now he felt the same sort of familiarity regarding Emma Swan, or at least her name. The only answer that made even a little sense was reincarnation, but of course he didn't believe in such things.

He shook his head to clear these thoughts. It was late, nearly midnight. He had to be up in a mere six hours, and so did Amy. He could get by with very little sleep, but he knew Amy couldn't, especially in her present condition. So he rose and said, "Come, dear. It's late; you should have been in bed hours ago."

She got up and met him in the doorway of the kitchen. Looking down at her, Mr. Gold saw the exhaustion on her face and the dried tear tracks still on her cheeks. He felt a pang of regret, an emotion almost completely alien to him. He had been the author of that exhaustion, those tears. Suddenly, he envisioned himself cupping that sweet face in his hands and leaning down to kiss those soft, luscious lips.

He banished the thought before it could go any further. If he ever dared such a thing, he would get nothing but a good hard slap; of that he was certain. And he would deserve it. The girl had no romantic feelings for him, and why should she? A girl of her attractiveness and intelligence and sweetness could have any man she wanted.

Looking up at Mr. Gold, Amy saw the tiredness in his eyes. His limp was more pronounced than usual, too, the way it was when he was truly fatigued. Her heart wrung with sympathy. She thought about offering her arm to him and helping him to his room, but dismissed the notion immediately. He would probably be annoyed at being treated like a feeble old man. Or, worse, he would think she was attempting to seduce him or something. He would rebuff her, probably laugh at her, and even though she wasn't trying to put the moves on him she would be crushed. It would just underline what she already knew: that a man like Mr. Gold could never want a girl like her.

Their gazes held for an inordinately long time, dark brown eyes meeting soft blue. Neither was aware of the thoughts going on behind the other's eyes; neither would have believed it if they had known.

Mr. Gold finally broke the silence by saying, "Don't worry about getting breakfast in the morning. You've been up far too late, and all on my account. I'll get something at the diner before I go to the shop."

Amy dropped her eyes, effectively ending the mini-staring contest. "If you say so, Mr. Gold," she murmured, that familiar blush creeping up her neck once again.

The clock in the library bonged midnight, startling both of them. That reminded Mr. Gold of something else unusual that had happened that night. He had meant to tell Amy about it before getting sidetracked by her meltdown.

"Oh, by the way," he began. "I have another piece of interesting news."

She perked up a bit. "Really? What's that?"

"You know the town clock? It's been broken for…I'm not sure how many years. Since you were a child, probably, maybe since before you were born. But for some reason, it started working again tonight."

She opened her mouth to respond, but snapped it shut as a pain suddenly gripped her abdomen.

He saw her wince and the way her hand flew to her midsection. Warning bells sounded in his head. "Amy, are you all right?"

She nodded. "I…I think so. Just a stomach cramp, I think." Just as suddenly another pain came, this one sharper. She couldn't help crying out.

In one swift move he had his arm around her waist and had turned her in the direction of the foyer. "I'm taking you to the hospital," he said in a tone that brooked no argument. Amy nodded, clutching her stomach. She wouldn't have argued anyway. Something was wrong, she realized.

Even with his cane and bad leg, Mr. Gold still managed to support her with little difficulty. She had a moment to marvel at his strength. The thought came to her mind unbidden: _maybe he's not really as frail as he wants people to think._

Then all thought was gone as a third pain, even worse than the first two, engulfed her. She couldn't even scream this time; she hadn't enough air for that. "Oh, God," she whispered. "My baby…"

Unlike the first two contractions—for there was no doubt in her mind that was what they were—which had come on rapidly and then abated, this one seized her and wouldn't let go. She felt her legs begin to give way beneath her. Her vision began to blur. She opened her mouth to tell Mr. Gold, but couldn't draw in enough air.

He had guessed anyway by the sudden dead weight of her. Yet another emotion he had rarely experienced coursed through him that night. This one was fear.

He was yelling, but though he was right beside her his words seemed to come from a great distance. "Amy! Amy!" The thought came to her clear and whole and perfect: _that's not my name_. Then a wave of blackness rolled over her, and she thought or knew no more.

**Sorry it took me a while to update, but it's been kind of crazy lately. Here's a nice long chapter to make up for it, though. I kept trying to end it or divide it or something, but apparently I had a case of Uncle Stevie syndrome. It just kept going and going and going…**

**As you can see I changed the rating from T to M. I don't think the sexydreams are all that graphic (at least I tried to write them not to be) but I figured better safe than sorry. (I will admit, though, that after writing that section I was taking a cold shower of my own.)**

**Let me add my vote to the "I can't believe they killed off Graham!" camp. I'm hoping, though, that things aren't really as they seem. Maybe what Mr. Gold was burying in the woods that morning (gardening my ass!) was a lockbox containing Graham's real heart? After all, if Regina still has some magic in Storybrooke, why shouldn't Mr. Gold? **

**Disclaimer time: I own no one but my OC and her worthless deadbeat ex. All other characters belong to ABC, Disney, et al.**

**And as always, warm fuzzies to my readers and reviewers. Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season! **


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Amy opened her eyes to see nothing but blinding whiteness. _Is this heaven? _she thought groggily. It certainly looked like every interpretation of heaven she'd ever seen; as her eyes adjusted to the brightness she saw that she was in a room with stark white walls and ceiling. Light poured in from a window next to her, though the shade (also white, naturally) was drawn. But, if this was indeed paradise hereafter, how had she gotten here? Of course, she wondered what had happened that had brought her here; but she also wondered how she had made the cut for heaven instead of the alternative. Didn't one have to believe in heaven in the first place in order to get there?

Her disjointed inner theological monologue was interrupted when a kindly, white-bearded face leaned over her with a smile. For a split second, she thought it was Saint Peter. But this man had glasses, which she didn't think a celestial being would need. Besides, there was something familiar about him. He was…she concentrated…he was…

"Doc," she croaked.

Dr. Dockery, Storybrooke's one and only OB-GYN, known to most of his patients as Doc ("because," he explained, "Dr. Dockery sounds like a stutter") beamed at her. "Well, Miss Miller," he said in his customary cheerful tone. "You're finally awake."

With every second that passed, she became more and more alert. Looking around, she saw the parts of the room she had missed on her first glance: the fake wood nightstand, the TV mounted high on the wall, the uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs, the two doors, side-by-side, that she knew would lead to a bathroom and the hallway respectively. "I'm in the hospital?"

He nodded affirmatively. "Yes," he said. "You were admitted early yesterday morning." His jovial expression faded, replaced by a look of concern. "Do you remember why?"

"No," she began…then suddenly she _did _remember. With a gasp, her hands flew to her belly, terrified of what they would find.

She was relieved beyond words to discover the same hard mound that had been there for some weeks now, and was steadily growing. The relief was even greater when she felt the same tentative tapping within she had started feeling recently, which seemed to grow a little stronger every time it came. She tried to speak, but couldn't around the sudden lump in her throat. Tears sprang to her eyes.

Doc understood exactly what she was going through at that moment, and answered the question she had been unable to voice. "You went into preterm labor, Miss Miller," he explained to her gently. "It happens sometimes; we don't always know why. We're still not sure in your case. But the important thing is that we were able to stop it. The baby is fine. If you follow my instructions to the letter, there's no reason you won't be able to carry her to term."

Two words from his speech jumped out at her. One was "fine". The other was "her".

Once again he seemed to guess what she was thinking. "A little girl," he confirmed, the smile returning to his face. "After we managed to stop the contractions, we did some testing to make sure the baby wasn't…harmed. Sometimes preterm labor is the body's way of expelling a child that has died or is dying. Luckily, that wasn't the case here. Not only was your baby very much alive and full of beans, she seems to be developing normally…and she was even kind enough to let us get a good look at her before she started flip-flopping around again, so we could tell that she _is_ a girl."

The tears spilled from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She made no effort to hide them. Although she still couldn't speak, she reached up and grasped his hand. Her message was unmistakable, even before she managed to whisper "Thank you."

"Miss Miller," he smiled down at her, and at that moment she loved him more than she had ever loved anyone, "you are very welcome."

Again, his smile faded. "But you're not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot," he cautioned. "We're going to keep you here at least another day for observation—" she nodded; she had expected as much—"and when we do release you you're going to have to be on bed rest indefinitely. Possibly for the remainder of your pregnancy."

Her relief and her joy vanished instantly, replaced by dismay. Bed rest…for who knew how long, maybe until she gave birth. She couldn't do it, there was no way. She was Mr. Gold's _housekeeper._ She couldn't be confined to bed! She'd lose her job; she would be out on the street. No, she couldn't do what the doctor was telling her.

But she _had_ to do it if she wanted her baby to survive. And Amy desired that above all things. She knew she would do whatever it took to keep her baby…her daughter…safe, even if it meant giving up her job, her place in the house she loved, and any certainty about either of their futures.

Doc could see the distress in her face. "Don't worry," he told the pale young woman in the hospital bed, patting her hand reassuringly. "It does no good for you or the baby to get yourself all worked up. I know you've been keeping house for Mr. Gold, and obviously you won't be able to continue doing so now. But I promise you, there's nothing to worry about. You have a lot more friends in town than you realize, Miss Miller. Even if you're unable to remain at Mr. Gold's any longer, there will be somewhere for you to go."

"Thank you," she repeated, though with far less elation than she had uttered the words before. It was nice of him to tell her that she would be taken care of, but she didn't want that. She didn't want to become the town charity case on top of everything else. But she realized that whether she wanted it or not, that was clearly what she was going to become now. Mr. Gold wouldn't continue to let her live in his home if she could no longer work for him, and why should he? He had already been far kinder than she would ever have expected. But in her present state, she had reached the end of her usefulness to him. She wasn't bitter about it. After all, he wouldn't be the first to discard her once he was done with her.

Still…deep in her heart, she felt a twinge of sadness. Damn her naïveté. It had led her astray yet again. It had led her to believe that maybe, just possibly, the man had felt something for her. Maybe not what she wanted him to feel for her, but something beyond the usual employer-employee relationship nonetheless? She had allowed her idealistic nature to cloud the truth of what she knew about him…just as she had done with Todd. And just as with Todd, she had experienced a rude awakening. Mr. Gold's absence spoke volumes. Or so she thought.

"I assume you've told my employer…or should I say my former employer…that I'll no longer be able to work for him?" she asked the doctor. Her tone wasn't bitter so much as resigned.

Much to her surprise the doctor said "No, I haven't."

She looked at him in frank confusion, one eyebrow slightly raised in a rather Mr. Gold-like expression.

"I wasn't going to discuss the particulars of your condition with him…with anyone…until I was able to talk with you first," Doc said. "And I haven't. And I won't, unless you allow it. No matter who's paying your medical bills, you're still entitled to doctor-patient confidentiality."

She was relieved by his words, and also somewhat in awe of him. There was a core of steel under that good-humored façade. He wasn't going to compromise his principles even for the man who more or less owned his hospital and his very town.

Her thoughts shifted back to Mr. Gold. If he didn't know about her condition and that she would no longer be able to work for him, and therefore was no longer of any use to him, then where was he? She asked the doctor this, though she left off the part about no longer being of any use to him.

"He had some business to attend to," Doc told her. She couldn't suppress a smirk. That was Mr. Gold for you.

Doc realized that she thought the man had more or less thrown her to the wolves, and was upset by this. Why she should be so hurt, he didn't know—didn't she realize who she'd been working for?—but that was no business of his. What _was _his business was the well-being of this girl and her child, so he told her the rest of it.

"He didn't specify, but I think he went home to get a shower and a change of clothes," Doc continued. "He only left about an hour ago, and only then after I assured him I would call if your condition changed in any way. He's hardly left your side since you were admitted, Miss Miller."

Amy frankly gaped at the kindly obstetrician. "Amy," she finally managed to say, apropos of nothing. "Call me Amy."

"Amy, then," Doc said. He was bewildered at the sudden inexplicable expression of happiness on the girl's face—not quite as joyful as when she had realized her baby was all right, but it was close. Again, he reminded himself it was none of his business.

"What do you remember of the night before last, Amy?" he asked.

She concentrated. "We were both going to bed…he'd been really late getting home, and I was worried, but it turned out he was OK. I was upset, but we talked it out…we were leaving the kitchen. He was going to his room, and I was going to my apartment," she clarified, not wanting the doctor to think anything unseemly. "Then the clock chimed midnight, and he told me that the old clock in the town square had started working again. Right when he told me that"—a shadow crossed her face at the memory—"the first contraction hit." She shook her head. "The next thing I remember is waking up here."

"Well, quite a bit happened between then and now," Doc said. "However, I really need to keep my word to Mr. Gold and let him know you're awake." He rose to go.

"But…but…" Amy protested. It was on the tip of her tongue to wail "You can't just leave me hanging after an opening like that!"

By the twinkle in his eye, she realized he knew very well what she was thinking. "Don't worry," he said, his merry expression returning once more. "There are two young ladies in the hall who have been chomping at the bit to see you. I'm sure they'll explain everything to your satisfaction." He winked at her as he left the room.

Perhaps thirty seconds after he exited the door banged open and Ruby charged in, Ashley right on her heels.

Ruby made it to the side of the bed in maybe ten steps, though it was a large room and the bed was located on the farthest side from the door. "Way to scare the shit out of everyone, Amelia," she greeted. "What are you planning for an encore?" Anyone else would have thought she was angry, but Amy knew better. Ruby got mean when she was scared, just like her grandmother; the two couldn't get along because they were so alike. Besides, she was close enough for Amy to see that her eye makeup was slightly smeared, and not intentionally.

"I'm OK, Rube," she said, smiling up at her friend. Ruby responded by throwing her arms around her. Amy's own arms came up to return the embrace, and the two girls simply held one another for a moment, cheek to cheek.

"Don't you ever pull a stunt like this again, Miller," Ruby whispered; but Amy could feel the wetness on her cheek. Her lips curved into a smile.

"Well, you have to admit it livened things up," she whispered back.

Ashley had never fully understood their banter or the way Ruby operated, and she was currently looking at Ruby as though she had done something horrible.

"Ruby!" she said reproachfully. "You're acting like Amy did it on purpose!"

Her friends broke their embrace and grinned at each other. Ashley was the most loyal friend one could ever hope to have, and the kindest-hearted, but she would never be accused of being quick on the uptake.

"Beavis," Ruby mouthed.

"Butters," Amy mouthed back. This was a routine that dated from their earliest days of high school, and never failed to sail right over Ashley's pretty blonde head.

"Hell, Ashley," Ruby addressed the other girl, "Amy knows I know she didn't do it on purpose. And she _did _scare the shit out of everybody." She turned back to the girl in the hospital bed. "You wouldn't believe this place for the past day and a half. It's been like Grand Central Station meets 'General Hospital'." She pulled one of the hard plastic chairs to Amy's bedside; Amy motioned for Ashley to do the same, and she did, settling at Amy's other side. Amy smiled at her and took her hand. She really had the best of both worlds with her friends, she realized. With Ruby she could satisfy her need for irreverent and often bawdy humor, and with Ashley she could indulge her gentle, protective side. Even if Fate had dealt her a shitty hand when it came to her family and her romantic relationships, she had lucked out when it came to her friends.

"What are you babbling about now, Rube?" she asked her raven-haired friend, who was dressed as outrageously as ever in a white cutoff top that ended just under her boobs and red short-shorts that didn't completely cover her butt. Next week it would be Thanksgiving. Leave it to Ruby.

"Doc said something a few minutes ago about me having more friends in this town than I realized, and now you're saying it's been like Grand Central Station." Amy went on. "What the hell, man?"

"Damned if I know," Ruby said, settling back for a good long gossip session. "Maybe everyone thought you were dead and this joint was the funeral home and they were coming to pay their respects. Ashley, chill," she said at the blonde's gasp. "When are you ever going to understand that this is just the way Amy and I are? Anyhoo," she continued without missing a beat, "you wouldn't believe the stream of visitors you've been getting, girl."

"Like who?" Amy was thoroughly mystified. She had barely spoken to anyone in town for months. Hell, she had barely _been _to town for months.

"Well, of course all the usual suspects," Ruby began ticking off, "like me and Ash and Granny. The three of us have been alternating shifts at the diner so at least one of us would be here when you woke up. And Sheriff Graham's been by a couple of times. And even the Big Cheese herself, Madame Mayor, stopped by yesterday."

Amy did her best Sheila Broslovski. "WhatwhatWHAT?" she said. "The _Mayor?_ Came by to see little old _me?_" The words were facetious, but the surprise was genuine.

"Yes," Ashley confirmed. "She didn't stay long, but she brought a big basket of apples."

"Probably loaded with pesticides," Ruby interjected. "I guess none of those are too surprising, though, even the Mayor. You know how she has to stick her nose in every single thing that happens in this town. But there's been a lot more. Dr. Hopper and Marco—"

Now Ashley interrupted. "They came together. They brought you flowers." She looked around. "Hey, where are your flowers?"

Ruby jumped up. "You're right, Ash," she said. "Where are the flowers?" she began searching the room, leaving Amy feeling as though she had dropped into Wonderland.

"Maybe they're watering them," Ashley suggested as Ruby began to mutter about damn flower-thieving nurses.

Ruby stared at her for a second before checking the bathroom. There, sitting in the sink, were Amy's floral tributes. Someone had indeed watered them, and must have left them in the sink to drain out a bit.

Amy's jaw dropped as Ruby carried several arrangements into the room and began placing them on the windowsill. "These are the ones from Dr. Hopper and Marco," she said of a pretty mixed fall bouquet. "Henry Mills brought you these daisies when he came by before school this morning. Did you know he ran away and found his birth mother?" Amy nodded. "He said to tell you that he would come back and visit later, and he would bring her with him."

Amy was startled. "She's still here?" she said. "But I thought—"

"Well, it's weird," Ruby said as she continued to artfully place the bouquets around the room. "Seems she wasn't actually wasted when she crashed her car—you know about that too, I guess. She woke up swearing that a giant wolf was standing in the road and caused her to swerve." She snickered. "I think she _had _had a little too much if you ask me. When have there ever been wolves around here?" Not expecting an answer and not waiting for one she went on. "Anyway, she changed her mind about leaving, at least for now. She's rented a room at the inn for a week. Granny's thrilled about that, I can tell you. Now we'll have something left over after making our payment to Mr. Gold for the month."

At the mention of Mr. Gold Amy's ears perked up. "Mr. Gold?" she said, trying not to sound too eager. "What's going on with him? Doc said he had to leave for a little while, but that he'd left instructions to call him if anything changed with me. He said he's hardly left my side."

This time it was Ruby and Ashley exchanging glances. Amy didn't like this turn of events one bit. "What?" she said, a little peevishly. "Why are you looking at each other like that? He's all right, isn't he?"

Silence." He is now," Ashley said finally.

"Now? What do you mean? Did something happen to him?" She knew she was blowing it at trying not to seem too interested, but now she was too anxious to care.

"Nothing life-threatening," Ruby hastened to assure her, glaring daggers at Ashley. Now Amy really felt like she was in Wonderland. "And he _has_ hardly left your side. Of course, for a while it was because he couldn't. You practically murdleized the poor guy's leg, Amelia."

"Ruby, she didn't do it on _purpose_," Ashley protested yet again, and Amy felt like she was back on somewhat familiar ground.

"I don't understand," she said. "What did I do to his leg?"

"You didn't do anything," Ashley said. "Well, you kinda did, but you didn't mean to. When you passed out—"

"I passed out?"

"Yuppers," Ruby cut in. "Just about took a swan dive right to the floor. Would have if he hadn't been there to catch you."

"Catch me?"

"Don't ask me how he did it," Ashley said. "The doctors explained it, but it was some big long word and I forget—"

"Adrenaline," Amy guessed through lips that suddenly felt numb.

"Yeah, that's it. Anyway, when he realized you were falling this adreny-whatever kicked in and he caught you. Then he carried you to the living room and laid you on the couch and called 911."

Ruby picked up the story. "The really crazy part is he did it all without his cane; he had to drop it to carry you. It was like he was Superman or something. By the time the paramedics got there, though, the adrenaline had worn off and he could hardly move. They brought him in the ambulance along with you. But they gave him a shot of something in his bad leg and now it's fine." She paused. "Well, it's as OK as it ever was."

"But even after his leg was better he stayed right with you until Dr. Dockery told him your condition was stable and you weren't going to lose the baby," Ashley put in. "Then he left for a little while, I think to change clothes."

"And collect his rents," said Ruby sourly. She and her grandmother were among the many in town that had Mr. Gold as a landlord.

Amy shook her head and smirked again, but this time it was rueful rather than bitter. Even after being a hero and injuring himself in the process, Gold had to turn around and remind Storybrooke just who he was. He wouldn't want the town to think he had gone soft.

"He's only been leaving long enough to go change, and he'll only leave if one of us or Granny is here," Ashley said. "He's even paying me to work at the diner so one of the three of us can be here all the time. And I don't think he's been to the shop the last couple of days."

"He hasn't," Ruby confirmed. "He's even been sleeping here. Not here in this room," she clarified at Amy's stunned expression. "They let him sleep in the on-call room. But there's still been plenty of talk about it, I can tell you."

"Talk?" Amy queried. "What kind of talk?" Even as she asked, she had a good idea of the kind of talk the latest occurrence in her and Mr. Gold's "arrangement" had engendered.

"Well…" Ruby hesitated. "Don't get upset, OK? The people who really count know the rumors are just retarded. We set them straight every time we have a chance. Granny even kicked Leroy and Dr. Whale out of the diner today for talking shit. 'If you're stupid enough to gossip about the man who owns this town right here in public where anyone can hear, that's your own affair,' she told them, 'but if you're going to slander the girl who's like another grandchild to me you'll have to do it elsewhere'. She tossed them right out on their asses. Wouldn't even let them finish their food or get it to go."

Amy was comforted at the thought of Granny taking up for her, but also disturbed. If the old woman had felt the need to defend her so strongly, whatever was being said must be pretty ugly. "Tell me, Rube," she said. "I won't get upset, I promise."

There was a long pause.

"There are different stories floating around," Ruby finally began. "Some people think Mr. Gold is the baby's father, and that's why you're staying with him. They think he's either going to claim the baby if it's a boy and marry you—I think the ones who think that have been reading too many of those 'historical novels' with the half-naked chicks on the front—or he's going to take the baby when it's born and pay you off to leave town. This is also utter bullshit. Who the hell ever leaves Storybrooke?

"Then there are the people who know that Todd was the baby's father, but they have some stupid-ass theories too. They think you and Mr. Gold have some kind of deal where he's going to sell your baby to the highest bidder and you're going to split the profits. And a few think he's going to adopt the baby himself and pay you off to leave town. That pretty much sums up all the stories," she concluded.

Amy was silent for a few minutes, taking it all in. she'd known the town had to be talking, but she had so far managed not to hear any of the theories floating around. She felt bad that people could think she was the kind of person who would actually sell her own baby, but somehow she felt even worse for Mr. Gold. Because of his many acts of kindness towards her, Storybrooke now thought even worse of him than they previously had. Even his act of heroism had been misconstrued.

"But like I said," Ruby reminded her, "the people who really count know what's really going on. Like Sheriff Graham, and Archie and Marco, and of course me and Ashley and Granny. And even a lot of the people who buy into these bullshit theories aren't totally crucifying you. A lot of people think you have no idea of Mr. Gold's…um…wicked schemes. They think you're just an innocent girl who got sucked in way over your head."

Amy finally spoke. "If you ask me," she said, "it sounds like everyone in town has been reading too many books. Or watching too many soaps, or something."

Ruby shrugged. "Well, you know Storybrooke. Nothing ever happens here, so when something finally does happen that's semi-interesting everyone has to put their two cents in about it. God, I hate this town."

"I do too, sometimes," Amy confessed. "I would leave it, if I could. I still might after the baby is born. I know it seems like no one ever does, but surely to God people leave _sometimes. _We just don't hear about it."

"I don't know," Ruby mused. "Remember when I was going to move to Boston? I already had a job lined up and everything. The night before I was supposed to leave Granny had her heart attack. And remember in seventh grade when Ashley and her family were thinking about moving to Bangor? Mr. Boyd was supposed to be going to look at a house when…" She fell silent. Ashley's father had died in a mysterious single-car crash right outside the city limits. No one had ever figured out what caused the crash, or why the car's airbag, which probably would have saved Mr. Boyd, hadn't deployed. "Anyway, it's almost like something doesn't want people to leave this town."

Amy grinned. "_Now _who's been reading too many books, Rube?" she teased. "Those were just coincidences. People come and go all the time. They must. Just because no one in our immediate circle has ever left doesn't mean that no one leaves."

"I don't know," Ruby repeated, uncharacteristically pensive. All three of them were quiet for a moment.

A change of subject was in order, Amy decided. "You said you've been setting people straight when they spout off with their theories," she said. "So what are you telling them?"

"Just what they need to know," Ruby replied, back to her sassy self. "That anyone with eyes could have seen you hanging around with Todd all summer, and anyone with half a brain should know that he's the daddy. That you'd never even met Mr. Gold until you were already pregnant and Todd pulled his vanishing act and your dad kicked you out. And that Mr. Gold gave you a job and a place to stay because…well, who knows why Mr. Gold does anything? But I've made it clear to everyone that you're _not _the kind of person who would sell her kid and that anyone who continues to say so will answer to me." She stuck out her chest. "Now, the people who really are concerned—like Dr. Hopper—I tell them a little more. Like that you're probably going to give the baby up for adoption, but you're going to do it the legal way, not sell it. And that, as far as I know, Mr. Gold hasn't tried to talk you into selling it, to him or anyone else."

"He hasn't talked to me about it at all since I first started working for him," Amy revealed. "I told him I was considering adoption, and he said that was probably a good idea, but beyond that he hasn't said a word about it."

"You don't think there's any way you can keep the baby?" Ashley finally spoke up.

Amy chose her words carefully. "I've thought about it," she told her friend. "I've gone over all the options, what few I have. I probably _could _keep the baby. I really want to, especially now, after almost losing her."

Ruby pounced. "'Her'?" she asked. Amy nodded. "Ha! I knew it!" Ruby gloated. "Granny owes me a night off. She was convinced it was a boy."

Amy smiled briefly before continuing. "But I couldn't give a baby the kind of life it deserves. I'm not going to be able to work for Mr. Gold anymore. Doc told me I have to stay on bed rest maybe until the baby is born, and you can't be a maid if you can't get out of bed. I don't even know how I'm going to live for the next few months, much less how I would support the baby once it comes. I guess I could try to get on welfare, but I don't want to live on charity. I don't want my baby to grow up on charity. I want my baby to have everything she could ever want or need. And I want her to have a family, a real family, not just a mom. I can't even give her an extended family, seeing as my dad will have nothing to do with us." The words were spoken matter-of-factly, without rancor. "So, no, Ash, I really don't see any way I could do it."

"Poor Amy," Ashley said softly, reaching for her hand. Amy took it and squeezed it, not trusting herself to speak around the lump that had suddenly risen in her throat.

Ruby, as usual, went to the heart of the matter. "You're not going to be able to work anymore?"

Amy shook her head. "Doc was pretty clear. He said bed rest indefinitely, and possibly until I give birth."

"Oh shit," Ruby said forthrightly. "What are you going to do?"

"She's going to follow his orders to the letter," a voice said from the doorway—a voice with a Scottish lilt. "And if she's wondering where she's going to go, the answer is right back to my house, as soon as Dr. Dockery clears her to be released from here."

Mr. Gold entered the room seemingly oblivious to the astounded gazes of the three girls. He was as natty as ever, in a charcoal-gray suit today with a maroon shirt and maroon-and-gray striped tie. The only signs of the stress of the past couple of days were that his limp was slightly worse than usual, and also a tiredness in his eyes Amy doubted anyone else recognized. He leaned heavily on his cane, but under his free arm he carried a gift box.

"Amy, dear," he greeted. Pale as she was, dressed in a shapeless hospital gown, she was still a sight for sore eyes, he thought.

"Hi, Mr. Gold," she murmured, almost shyly.

Ruby, never known for tact, nonetheless possessed a small shred. She jumped up. "Ash, let's go down to the cafeteria and get something to drink," she said.

For once Ashley took the bait. "OK," she said agreeably, standing. "Here, Mr. Gold, take my chair." He slid into the chair with a barely audible sigh of relief and thanked her. The two girls hugged their friend, promised to return shortly, and made their exit. Their hasty retreat wasn't lost on either the girl in the hospital bed or the man in the chair.

They were alone for the first time in almost two full days. At first, it seemed neither of them knew what to say. They simply sat there gazing at one another. Each noted the fatigue in the other's eyes. He observed the dried tearstains on her cheeks, but also the tremulous smile that played about her mouth. He wanted so badly to reach out and cup her face in his hands, but refrained.

"How are you feeling?" he finally asked.

"I'm all right," she said. "A little sore, probably from laying in bed for so long. I'm sorry about your leg."

"Don't think anything of it, dear," he said. "It's better already."

"No it isn't," she stated. "I can tell. I know how it happened, too. You saved me, Mr. Gold. If you hadn't been there I could have died. And my baby definitely would have died. I'll never be able to repay you for that."

He couldn't stop himself then from laying a hand on her cheek briefly. "Amy," he told her, his eyes so dark, his face so serious, "don't ever think you have to repay me for that. No one else could have done any less."

His eyes were so intense she had to drop her gaze. "Still," she said quietly, "I'll always be thankful to you."

"I appreciate that, dear. But as I said, anyone would have done the same thing in my position." He hesitated a moment before adding, "Besides…I think it was my fault in the first place."

Amy's head jerked back up. She looked at him uncomprehendingly. "Your fault?" she repeated. "You mean, me going into preterm labor? Don't be silly, Mr. Gold. How could it have been your fault?"

"It's possible," he confessed. "I did some research…severe emotional stress can cause preterm labor. You were so distraught that night, and I could have prevented it just by making a phone call. You'd already been under a strain; with your young man abandoning you and your father…I can't shake the feeling that I pushed you over the edge, somehow."

She was shaking her head, no, no. "Mr. Gold," she said firmly, "I don't know what caused this to happen. No one does. Dr. Dockery said there are several different reasons it could have happened, and we may never know. But even if that _was _what caused it, you can't blame yourself. The important thing is that the baby and I are both all right. By the way, Doc told me it's a girl, just like I thought."

He smiled briefly at this news. A girl. That would be good information to have when he finally located the right set of parents. Quickly he sobered his expression again.

"Nevertheless, I do blame myself," he said. "And that's one of the reasons I want you to stay on at my home, even though you won't be able to work for the time being."

"Mr. Gold…" she began, and then trailed off. She didn't know what to say.

"I won't take no for an answer, Amy," he replied, and this time his was the firm voice. "And it's not just because I blame myself for what happened. Even if it had been something else that caused it, I would have wanted you to remain with me." _With me? _Damn, that wasn't what he'd meant to say. He'd meant to say _at my home. _Luckily she didn't appear to notice.

But she noticed. _With him? _she thought. _He wants me to be with him? _With a tremendous effort she managed to smother the delighted grin that threatened to break across her face.

"You've already been kicked too many times while you were down," he rushed on, "and I'm not going to join the club of brutes. And I do feel somewhat responsible for you, given that I'm your employer. But most of all, Amy…" He hesitated again. Should he say it? Should he reveal, not his deepest feelings, but some of his deeper ones? Yes, he finally decided.

"You've done so much more for me in the past few months than keep my house, Amy," he declared. "You've done an excellent job, don't get me wrong. But you've provided me with thought-provoking conversation; you've treated me with respect, but not with the fear everyone else in this town does. You've made that big old house a pleasant place to be. I never used to look forward to going home. I would even keep the shop open all hours of the day and night to avoid it. Now, though, I'm ready to close up every day." He paused, realizing he was perilously close to confessing his…whatever one would call the feelings he had for her. He concluded, "I never realized how lonely I was until you were there. I don't want to go back to that."

It wasn't the passionate declaration of love Amy had secretly hoped for, but it was enough. It was more than enough. He _did _care for her. She wasn't just an employee to him; she had brightened his life. Truth be told, he had done the same for her. She wanted to tell him so, but didn't think she could without going too far and confessing her feelings for him. So she simply said, "Well, if you're really sure…"

"I really am," he assured her, giving her another one of his rare genuine smiles. Amy wondered if anyone else in Storybrooke had ever seen his true smile, had seen the way it transformed his severe countenance into something that was almost handsome. She doubted it.

At that moment a Pink Lady tapped on the door, then came on in without waiting for a response. "Suppertime," she announced. Mr. Gold looked annoyed at the interruption. Amy was, too, until she realized the Pink Lady was wheeling a cart bearing a covered tray. Her stomach rumbled at the sight, and she suddenly realized that she was ravenous. She hadn't eaten since the beef stew and cookies nearly forty-eight hours earlier. They had been feeding her through an IV, she supposed, but intravenous fluids evidently did little to really sate one's hunger.

The rumbly in her tumbly died as soon as she got a look at the contents of the tray, though. She lifted the lid eagerly, only to be greeted with the sight of a chicken breast that had been boiled until it was an unpleasant shade of gray. The sides were no better: a scoop of white rice and a serving of peas and carrots, the only two vegetables she truly hated. There wasn't even a roll. Well, maybe dessert would be better, she thought as she peeled the plastic wrap back from the small bowl beside the tray. Alas, she was disappointed. The food on her tray, unappetizing as it was, was at least recognizable; she didn't even want to hazard a guess as to the yellowish goo filling the bowl.

"Looks like pudding," Mr. Gold commented. "Vanilla, maybe…or banana…or lemon," he finished lamely. He could tell Amy was less than thrilled with what was to be her first real meal in two days. Truth be told, he was rather underwhelmed himself. Hospital food. He had heard all the jokes about it, but had fortunately never had to experience it for himself. Looking at the contents of Amy's tray, though, he could see that the jokes had more than a grain of truth in them.

Once again, someone entered the room without being invited. Once again, Mr. Gold was irritated by the interruption, but quickly hid it at the expression of delight on Amy's face. The visitor was none other than Mrs. "Granny" Woods, and she was carrying—oh joy! Oh, celestial choirs!—a thermal bag with a couple of small containers balanced on top.

"My God," she exclaimed as she took in the contents of Amy's supper tray, "How to they expect anyone to get better in this place eating that pig slop?" The hospital food was unceremoniously pushed aside as Granny laid the thermal bag on the cart.

Amy was much happier with the contents of the bag: a compartmented plate containing Granny's special pot roast with gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans, with not one, not two, but _three _of Granny's famous yeast rolls. Granny opened one of the containers to reveal a fresh salad containing the mixed greens, cherry tomatoes and mushrooms Amy loved, topped with a generous helping of ranch dressing.

"Doc said no blue cheese, honey, sorry," she announced to the happily thunderstruck girl in the hospital bed. "He approved everything else, though, so you go ahead and eat up." Amy needed no further encouragement. Tearing open the bag of utensils the hospital had provided, she dug in.

Mr. Gold was actually happy to see Granny, too, though not exactly for the same reasons Amy was—though he did appreciate her bringing the girl something to eat that was both nutritious and tasty. There were some matters he wanted to discuss with her.

"Mrs. Woods," he said, getting to his feet, "might I have a word with you in the hallway?"

Granny looked none too pleased at this prospect, but she nodded. Mr. Gold bent and pressed a quick kiss to the top of Amy's head, surprising them all. "Enjoy your dinner, dear. Mrs. Woods and I will just be a minute." He laid the gift box on the chair he had just vacated. "I probably won't be back tonight. I have a few…matters to attend to, and now that you're out of danger I could use a good night's sleep. The cot in the on-call room is rather uncomfortable. I'll be back first thing in the morning, though. They'll probably allow you to have a bath after supper; you can change into what's in the box then, if you like." Before Amy could do more than gape at him he was gone, Mrs. Woods close behind him.

Amy strained to hear the conversation that was going on in the hall, to no avail; they had left the door slightly ajar, but their words were whispered. She soon gave up and focused on the delicious meal Granny had brought her. She had cleaned her plate and was starting on dessert (the other container Granny had brought, which was a banana pudding that was infinitely more pleasing to the eye and mouth than the yellow goop the hospital had dished out) when Granny finally came back in.

She looked…thunderstruck was the word that came to Amy's mind. "Well, I declare!" she proclaimed to the girl in the hospital bed gobbling up banana pudding. "I think that was the strangest thing that's happened since…well, since I can remember."

Amy looked up from her pudding. She was mildly surprised by Granny's expression, but not really alarmed. "What's the matter, Granny?" she asked before applying herself to the pudding with renewed vigor.

"That Mr. Gold," Granny said, shaking her head. "I swear I can't figure that man out."

Amy lost interest in her dessert. "Why? What'd he do?" For some reason her stomach began to do flip-flops. She wasn't sure why. After all, Mr. Gold had just reassured her that she had a place under his roof at least until her baby came. She didn't have anything to be worried about. But seeing the normally unflappable Granny look so flabbergasted was a rare occurrence. Could Mr. Gold have said something to her…_threatened _her even? Surely not. Why would he do that? Then again, who could tell why Mr. Gold did anything?

"He didn't say anything…ugly to you, did he?" Amy asked the older woman.

"Lord, no, child," Granny hastened to reassure her. "You know Mr. Gold. That isn't his way. I'll say that for him, I've never seen him be anything other than perfectly polite, even when he's takin' your last dollar or repossessin' everything you have. But…" The old woman trailed off.

Amy was reassured, but her curiosity was definitely piqued. "But what?" she pressed.

Granny smiled down at her. "You haven't changed a bit, have you? You always were a curious little thing. It always surprised me, you bein' such a shy, quiet little girl. I always had to keep my eye on you; there was never any tellin' what you'd be into next. Ruby, now, all I had to do was follow the sound of her voice. But you kept me on my toes." She reached down to stroke the cottony dark hair.

Amy smiled up at the woman she considered her adopted grandmother. "Guess I figured out early on that being the quiet one means you can get away with a lot more," she said. Granny chuckled. "But don't try to change the subject, Granny-Gran. What did Mr. Gold do?"

Granny frowned, but the expression was thoughtful rather than angry. "it was the strangest thing," she repeated. "He was polite, like he always is…but this time it seemed…_sincere._ You know what I mean?" Amy nodded. "He thanked me for bringing you something decent to eat, and it really seemed like he meant it. Then he asked me if I would consider allowing Ruby to stay with you during the day while he's at his shop. I told him I'd be glad to do that, of course, but that I really need her at the diner. Then he proposed that Ruby and Ashley take turns staying with you; one could work the diner while the other was with you. I told him that would be fine, but that I couldn't afford to pay Ashley, and I know she needs the money; she's barely scraping by as it is. So he told me not to worry about making any payments on the inn or the diner until you have your baby. 'You can pay Ashley's salary out of that, can't you?' he asked. Of course, I can. If I don't have to pay on the inn, either, I can even afford to give Ruby a little something. I've always wished I could, you know, but after paying the bills and making my payments to him there was never anything left over. 'Mr. Gold,' I told him, 'that would work out fine until after Amy's baby comes, but what then? I'll be behind on my payments to you, and I don't know as I'll ever be able to catch up.

"Then he said, 'You won't have to repay me for the payments you don't make while Ruby and Ashley are staying with Amy. We'll consider them looking after her as your payments for those months.' Well, I nearly dropped my teeth when he said that, let me tell you! It all sounded too good to be true. I'd have been worrying about you all day, knowing you were all alone in that big house on bed rest…Mr. Gold told me about that. I know Ashley and that granddaughter of mine would have been worrying all the time, too. But this way, somebody will be with you all the time.

"You know me, though. I've never trusted that man. Never will, either, to be honest. So I said, 'Mr. Gold, this sounds like a perfect arrangement, but I have to ask you, why? Why are you doing all this for Amy? Forgive me, sir, but you're not exactly known for your generosity.'" She had no way of knowing that was practically the same thing Amy had asked him upon their first meeting.

"What did he say then?" Amy asked.

"Well, he got the oddest look on his face. I guess you'd call it a tender look, though I didn't know what to call it at the time. It's certainly a look I'd never seen on his face before. Then he kind of…shut it off. 'Mrs. Woods,' he said, 'I'm not in the habit of discussing my reasoning behind my decisions. Suffice it to say that the girl in that room has been kicked while she was down too may times, and I'm not going to be another one who does that to her.' That was good enough for me, so I agreed to his terms. We shook on it. Then he handed me back the money I gave him just yesterday, and he said, 'Good evening, dear,' like he usually does when he comes by to collect, and he left." Granny concluded, "Now have you ever heard the beat of that?"

Amy shook her head. "No," she said slowly. "No, I never have." Her brain was working overtime at this latest development. She had been surprised but pleased when Mr. Gold had insisted she stay at his house even though she could no longer work for him; but she never would have expected him to go this far. Why _was _he being so generous with her? There had to be a reason beyond those he had given her. For the first time, Amy truly comprehended that she was quite possibly in a situation way over her head. It was well known that Mr. Gold never did anything for anyone without expecting something in return.

The question was, what would he expect from her?

Amy's hands flew of their own accord to protectively cover the mound of her belly. Even as they did so, she berated herself. Not her baby, that was certain. He had hardly even mentioned the baby after their first evening together, beyond occasionally asking how she was feeling. And what would a fortysomething bachelor possibly wan with an infant, anyway?

In the back of her mind she heard Ruby: _He's going to sell your baby to the highest bidder. _A chill ran through her at the remembered words. Resolutely she pushed them, and the thought, out of her mind. That was a terrible thing to think of Mr. Gold, especially after he had been so kind to her. Maybe, just maybe he was doing all this for her out of the kindness of his heart. She was being no better than the rest of Storybrooke, assigning ulterior motives to the man with no good reason. She wouldn't allow herself to think any more of those thoughts.

But deep in her heart, the first small seed of doubt was planted.

…

The rest of the evening passed uneventfully enough. Ruby and Ashley returned, and were delighted to hear of the arrangement Granny had made with Mr. Gold. Ruby was pleased to get to spend more time with her best friend, and also less time at the diner. And she was ecstatic that they wouldn't have to make any payments to Mr. Gold for the next few months.

Ashley, too, was pleased that she would be able to spend time with her friend. Maybe, she thought to herself, she could talk to Amy some more about keeping the baby. She knew her friend really wanted to keep her child, no matter what brave face she was putting on. Maybe she could convince her that it was worth the risk. If they talked about it enough, maybe they would figure out a way for her to survive as a single mother. Smart as Amy was, Ashley knew if there was a way she would figure it out eventually. Ashley realized her friends thought of her as the stereotypical dumb blonde, and in some ways she was, but when it came to matters of the heart she was wiser than either of them.

Granny insisted that both the girls stay the night with Amy. Ruby protested a bit; she knew things could get rowdy at night when the diner became a bar. Granny assured her she could handle it. She doubted her two unruliest patrons (Leroy and Dr. Whale) would be showing their faces that night, anyway. Ruby finally acquiesced, and two cots were brought to Amy's room.

Doc paid another visit, and when Amy begged he agreed that she could take a quick shower. She knew they had been sponge-bathing her, but she still felt grungy. And she knew her hair must be a grease pit. Ashley and Ruby said they'd help so none of the nurses would have to take time from their schedules (Storybrooke General was notoriously understaffed), though of course they would call for help if anything should happen.

Nothing did, though. Amy felt completely rejuvenated after her shower. Honestly, she felt as well as she had during her entire pregnancy. She couldn't believe she was going to have to spend the foreseeable future in bed; she knew she'd be stir crazy in a matter of days. But she knew, too, that she would do it. If it was the best thing for her baby, she would make herself do it. The baby's safety was the only thing that mattered.

The gift box Mr. Gold had brought turned out to contain a beautiful pale-blue satin nightie with a matching bed jacket. It was short, but loose and floaty, and accommodated her expanded stomach easily. There was a note with it that read simply, _I figured you already had enough flowers._ Amy wished Mr. Gold was there to see how nice his gift looked on her. "It matches your eyes," Ruby and Ashley said. But he'd be back in the morning; he would see her in it then.

After the shower, the Terror Trio (as they had nicknamed themselves years ago) settled in just like it was one of their slumber parties from middle school, giggling about everything under the sun and groaning when Ashley insisted on watching _Gossip Girl. _It was well past midnight when they all finally drifted off to sleep.

…

_Love was over, and they were simply lying there entwined in each other's arms. She enjoyed these times; they didn't happen very often. It was rare when the man—for indeed he was a man, or had been—could contain his restless, almost manic energy long enough to simply lie still and drift in the moment. But tonight he seemed content to lie there with her, holding and caressing her, trailing one golden nail across her gently swelling belly._

"_You're beautiful," he told her. She was struck by the gentleness of his tone, and by his eyes. Instead of the half-crazed yellow orbs she had come to know, they were a warm golden brown, and for the moment at least, utterly human._

"_So are you," she told him. He looked deeply into her eyes when she said this, not truly believing she could find him so. But nothing was reflected there except honesty and love. She didn't see him as the rest of the world did, he realized. When she looked at him she saw the man he had once been…the man he was starting to think he still might be, deep down. To her, he _was _beautiful._

_He loved her for this, and for countless other things. it had been so long since he had felt this way. He had nearly forgotten what it was like to feel this way. He hoped that soon, he'd be able to tell her this. He hoped that this love he felt would be enough to keep him sane._

_He continued to caress the small mound of her abdomen. "Can you see the baby?" she asked him sleepily. "Is it healthy? Is it developing normally? Do you know what it is?"_

_He closed his eyes as if deep in thought and rested both hands on her belly. For a long time he didn't speak. She was beginning to grow apprehensive when he finally answered._

"_Yes, yes, and yes," he said. "The baby is perfectly fine…and it's a girl."_

_She squealed and threw her arms around him. "I knew it!" she exclaimed joyfully. "A little girl…a daughter I can name after my mother, just as I've always wanted."_

_He laughed at her enthusiasm. "I'm going to be outnumbered pretty soon," he said. "A house full of women…I'd go out of my mind, if I wasn't already."_

_She giggled. "You're not out of your mind," she told him. "Crazy like a fox, that's what you are." _

_She lifted her head to kiss him. Their kiss was slow, tender, unlike most of the kisses they had shared. This night was unlike most they had shared, in point of fact. He was not one for long, drawn-out lovemaking. Which was not to say he wasn't passionate; he was very much so, and quite…inventive. She had never been aware of all the ways there were to give and receive pleasure until he had begun to teach them to her. The fact that she was carrying another man's child appeared to bother him not one bit. Then again, he knew the man was of no importance to her now, that the only thing he had ever done for her was plant the child that kicked now in her belly. Since the moment she had laid eyes on him, she had been, only and always, _his. _Even though she hadn't realized it right off._

"_Rumple," she murmured against his lips as he moved to take her again. Before much more time passed, she was screaming it aloud._

…

"Damn, woman, wake up the whole hospital, why don't you?" Ruby exclaimed.

Amy woke with a start. "What…what?" she stammered, unable to recognize her surroundings for a moment.

"You were thrashing round and yelling loud enough to break the windows," Ruby told her, sitting up in her cot. "I bet you even woke up that coma guy down the hall. What the hell were you dreaming about? you kept saying something like 'Rumble…rumble.'"

Amy shook her head. The dream was already fading from her mind, but she recalled enough of it to know that she definitely didn't want to tell Ruby about it. If Ruby knew she was having sexy dreams about Mr. Gold—or some version of him, anyway—God! She'd never hear the end of it.

"I don't remember," she lied. "'Rumble'? I must have been dreaming about _West Side Story _or something." It was the only thing she could think of on such short notice.

"Or World Championship Wrestling," Ruby said over a yawn. She was already falling asleep again. Ashley hadn't even stirred.

Amy giggled. "Go back to sleep, Rube," she said. "Sorry I woke you up."

"Don't worry about it," Ruby muttered as she rolled over. "Just don't do it again, though. I need my beauty sleep, you know." Within minutes she was snoring again.

But it was a long time before Amy went back to sleep.

**Greetings, fellow OUAT fanatics! Sorry it's been such a long time between updates. I had a lot of distractions, some pleasant (Christmas, the Nook I received from Santa Claus) and some not-so (the usual family and workplace drama, a gnarly but short-lived stomach virus). **

**I know I said I would probably finish this before the episode revealing Rumple's backstory (four more days, woot woot!), but it didn't happen. Mea culpa, mea culpa. I've seen some spoilers, though, and I'm going to be able to work them into the story without changing my original idea too much. I've also settled on the ending…I think. (I may do what one of my reviewers suggested and post both possible endings, and then let the readers pick their fave.)**

**I'm sure most of you have figured out that Amy's "dreams" are actually memories of the fairytale world resurfacing. So was the preterm labor, in fact. There will be a few more flashbacks here and there, but it will be a while before the full story is revealed. I've managed to get rid of the Ashley/Cinderella pregnancy plot while keeping everything else in canon, at least so far (although I've heard rumors that Regina/Evil Queen is going to turn out be the miller's daughter, which if true will really send my story off into AU-land). I'm already at work on the next chapter, which will encompass most of what's already happened on the show. Henry and Emma will appear, too.**

**The usual disclaimer: I own only my OCs. And as usual, mad love and thanks to my readers and reviewers. There are a lot of really good OUAT fics popping up. I'm especially enjoying "Not Your Average Lion," by BObsessedryis (hope I spelled that right), "With Eyes Wide Open" by Hades'Queen, "To Carry On" by Black Hole Phoenix, "To Wish Upon A Moon" by Morbid DramaQueen10, and "In the Shadow of the Toll Bridge" by Nikstlitslepmur (love that name!) Check them out if you haven't already!**

**Off to bed now. Gotta be ready to face the world in the morning. Night, all!**

.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

As fall turned to winter in the Northeast, the people of Storybrooke came to realize that there was something different in the atmosphere. After countless years of the same old, same old, it seemed that changes were finally coming to the small town. Not everyone liked the sense of revolution that seemed to constantly hang in the air, and almost no one spoke of it, but they all recognized it.

It seemed to some of the more discerning townspeople that the changes had begun with the arrival of the mysterious Emma Swan, but very few of them realized that it had started months before that. The chain of events which would eventually unfold had actually gotten its start months earlier, the day Mary Margaret Blanchard gave her pupil Henry Mills a book of fairy tales. But since only a handful of people knew about this occurrence, it was generally held that Emma Swan's appearance was the harbinger of what was to come.

Henry had indeed brought his birth mother to meet Amy, and she had been pleasantly surprised by the woman. After what she had heard about the woman returning Henry to the mayor, and the crash that might or might not have been alcohol-related, Amy supposed she had formed some preconceived notions about the woman. But Emma Swan turned out to be completely different from what she had expected.

She and Henry had come to see Amy the day after she was released from the hospital. Amy was once again ensconced in Mr. Gold's house, with one notable difference: instead of the little apartment in the west wing, she was now occupying the master suite—Mr. Gold's room.

He had insisted upon it. "I want you somewhere close enough where I can hear you if you need anything in the night," he had said, "and this is the most comfortable room in the house." Amy had to admit that this was true. The master suite was spacious and airy, with antique mahogany furnishings, the focal point being an enormous sleigh bed that dominated the room. It was decorated in the same red and gold color scheme as most of the other rooms in the house. Also like the rest of the house, it appeared to be thoroughly vintage, but modern touches had been placed here and there, skillfully disguised of course. There was another flat-screen hidden in another armoire; the elaborately carved fireplace had been converted to gas, so one had only to flip a switch to be enjoying a roaring fire in moments. Of course, there was an adjoining bathroom, with the same theme of mahogany, red, and gold. The bathroom was far more blatantly modern than the bedroom however, with its stall shower and sunken black-marble whirlpool tub.

Mr. Gold had moved to the guest room next door for the time being. He wouldn't hear Amy's suggestion that she move into the guest room and let him keep his own room. "The master suite is the only one in the house with its own bathroom, besides your apartment," he told her. "You're supposed to be on bed rest; you don't need to be traipsing halfway through the house every time you have to use the facilities. Besides, I'm perfectly comfortable in the guest room." And he was. The guest room, while not as ornate, was more than adequate. Also, though of course he didn't inform Amy of this, its close proximity to the master suite made his late-night visits to her much easier.

So it was to the master suite that Ashley brought the two visitors. When they arrived, Amy was sprawled on top of the bedclothes, clad in a faded Storybrooke Steeds (the high school's mascot) T-shirt. The shirt had been much too large when she bought it at the freshman homecoming game; due to the normal shrinkage and her current condition, it just fit her now. She also wore a pair of men's flannel pajama pants, which Mr. Gold had purchased for her at the Storybrooke Family Shoppe at her request. He had raised an eyebrow when she asked for them, but had brought them to her without comment. She hadn't specified a color, but the pants were a blue-and-gray plaid. Amy had suppressed a smile when he presented them to her. He had obviously noticed her penchant for blue. Then again, since nearly every outfit she owned contained some shade of blue, she supposed it wasn't all that difficult to surmise that this was her favorite color.

She was puttering away on the laptop he had also brought her the day before, claiming that someone had brought it to the pawnshop. Amy supposed it could be true, but wondered why someone would buy the latest laptop on the market and immediately turn around and pawn it. She thought it far more likely that Mr. Gold had purchased it for her. He had expected her to protest as she did with his other unsolicited gifts, but she had merely smiled and thanked him. She was facing a lengthy interlude confined to bed, and the laptop would definitely help pass the time.

Originally she had been browsing the Motherhood Maternity website for pajamas and lounging clothes. She was going to need a lot more of both on bed rest. But the website, being for expectant mothers, naturally contained several links to infants' clothing and goods shops. She had tried to ignore the links, but eventually, against her better judgment, had clicked on the Babies 'R' Us link.

It had been a terrible mistake. Amy's eyes filled as she scrolled through the tiny dresses and onesies. There was a little pink seersucker dress with an embroidered lace collar, exactly the sort of thing she had imagined she would bring a little girl home from the hospital in. There were onesies that were simple enough for everyday wear, but no less adorable to her eyes with their bright colors and themes. She knew she should get off the website before she totally destroyed herself. Instead she clicked on the nursery section.

The first thing she saw on the page was the "Classic Pooh" bedding set. She began to cry softly in earnest. She had always wanted to do a nursery in Classic Pooh. She had pictured sitting in a rocking chair with her baby on her lap, reading the A.A. Milne storybook out loud. Shutting her eyes, she pictured this now, but was surprised to find a new element added to the old fantasy: Mr. Gold standing behind the chair in which she rocked, one hand on her shoulder, gazing down at her and the baby with unmistakable affection.

The vision shocked her out of her tears. Just then, she heard voices in the hall. She had been so lost in her futile wishing she hadn't heard the doorbell ring. Hurriedly, she shut the laptop and blinked the tears away just as her visitors came into the room.

"Look who's here!" Ashley announced brightly from the doorway.

Henry Mills rushed to her bedside, followed by a blonde woman Amy had never seen, but knew must be Emma Swan. "Amy!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms around his old babysitter.

Amy hugged him back. "Hey, Henry," she said. "Long time no see. My God, you're growing up. Hasn't he grown up, Ashley?" Ashley smiled and nodded.

Amy smiled at the unfamiliar blonde woman, who smiled back but seemed to be a bit confused. Amy could just hear her wondering, _who is this? How did I get here?_

Henry answered the first question for her. "Emma, this is Amy Miller. She used to babysit for me when I was little," he announced. "Amy, this is my real mom, Emma Swan."

Emma looked a bit taken aback to have Henry refer to her this way, but held her smile. "Nice to meet you," she said, extending her hand.

Amy shook it. "Likewise," she responded, taking a good look at Henry's biological mother. What she saw surprised her and, oddly, pleased her. Emma Swan was an attractive woman in her late twenties. Her blonde hair was long and wavy, her eyes blue. She reminded Amy of someone, though she couldn't think who. She certainly didn't look like the kind of woman who was in the habit of driving drunk or handing over her child to cold, unfeeling women.

"Where's Mr. Gold?" Henry asked, interrupting her assessment of his mother.

Amy turned her smile back to him. "He's still at the shop," she answered. "He won't be home for a few hours."

"Mr. Gold is the richest guy in town," Henry explained to Emma.

"I can tell," Emma said dryly, looking around the room. She'd thought the mayor's house was pretty impressive, but it paled in comparison to this one. She looked at the girl in the bed. "So you're Mr. Gold's…" she trailed off, unsure of what to say. Evidently not his daughter, since her last name was Miller. Could she possibly be his wife? She couldn't picture the creepy guy she had met a couple of nights before married to this friendly, attractive girl, but she supposed anything was possible. It sure wouldn't be the weirdest thing she had seen in this place.

Amy grinned. "His housekeeper," she said. "Or rather, I was."

Emma Swan looked gobsmacked at this revelation. Amy could just imagine the thoughts that were running through her mind now. Henry filled in the blanks for her. "Amy was working for Mr. Gold after her dad threw her out when she got pregnant," he said matter-of-factly. "She went into preterm labor the night I came and found you. She's OK now, but she has to be on bed rest. Mr. Gold said she could still live here until the baby is born."

Now it was Amy's turn to be gobsmacked. She simply stared at the boy for a moment. "Good Lord, child," she said when she could finally speak again, "do you know everything that goes on this town?"

"Pretty much," Henry replied. "I live with Regina, remember? She knows everything that goes on here, and, well, I eavesdrop a lot."

Amy shook her head ruefully. "You're still doing that, huh? Don't you remember what I told you about eavesdropping?"

"'Never peer through a keyhole lest you be vexed'," Henry recited dutifully. "Yeah, I know. But I already know what she thinks of me, and this way I can find out about anything interesting that's happening."

Amy winced at the "know what she thinks of me", and saw Emma do the same. Her cringe wasn't lost on Emma, either. The two women smiled at one another again, the beginnings of a cautious camaraderie forming.

All of them were silent for a moment until Amy remembered her manners. "Please, sit down," she said, indicating the overstuffed chairs on either side of the room. Emma pulled over the one closest to Amy's side of the bed, but Henry flopped down beside her on the bed itself.

"Henry!" Emma admonished.

"It's all right," Amy assured her. "Henry and I go way back." She ruffled the boy's slick dark hair as he grinned. "We used to sit like this and read stories, didn't we, champ?" she looked up at Ashley, still hovering near the door. "Ash, pull up the other chair."

"I will in a minute," Ashley said. "I forgot your drink in the kitchen, though when I heard the doorbell. Let me go get it. Henry, Emma, would either of you like anything to eat or drink?"

"I'm fine, thanks," Emma said, looking a bit uncomfortable.

Henry had no such reservations, however. "Milk and cookies?" he asked hopefully.

"Henry!" Emma admonished again. Amy smiled at the maternal tone. Whether she knew it or not, Emma was already beginning to step into the role of Henry's mother. She bet the Mayor was none too pleased about that.

"It's fine," she assured Emma. "We have both. No Oreos, I'm afraid," she told the boy, knowing they were his favorite, "but I baked some molasses cookies the night I…well, you know…and they should still be good."

"Oh yeah, I like those," Henry said cheerfully. "I remember we baked them at Christmas one time."

"Milk and cookies, coming right up," Ashley said. "Emma, you're sure you don't want anything?"

"Well, since Henry is going to have a snack," Emma said wryly, "I'd like to try some of those cookies myself. I'd rather have a Coke to go with them, though, if you have any."

"We do," Ashley confirmed. "Be right back!"

"Now, who's that?" Emma asked when she left. Amy couldn't tell if she was asking her or Henry, but Henry answered.

"In the book or in Storybrooke?" he asked.

Amy's curiosity was aroused. "What book?" she asked. Emma had a 'here-we-go-again' look on her face. Amy could tell she wanted to roll her eyes, but she refrained from doing so. Her liking for the woman grew a bit more.

"Here Ashley is one of Amy's best friends and also works for Mr. Gold," Henry said, "but in the book she's Cinderella. She was easy to figure out—she's a maid, and she has a stepmother and two stepsisters who are mean to her."

Amy was completely lost. "Henry, what on earth are you talking about?" she asked.

"My book of fairytales," the boy said guilelessly. "Miss Blanchard gave it to me at the beginning of school. I figured it out, Amy—everyone in Storybrooke is a fairy-tale character, but none of them know it because they're all under a curse. And guess who put them under the curse?" Amy was too stunned to respond, but he answered anyway. "The Evil Queen—Regina!"

Amy truly didn't know what to say. Henry, sweet little Henry, had clearly finally snapped under the pressure of living with Mayor Mills and had created a fantasy world for himself. She wanted to cry, but she was determined not to do it in front of him. Besides, she had done too much crying already in the past few months; she was getting sick of it.

So she pasted on a smile instead. "Wow, Henry. That's really…interesting. A curse, you said?"

Encouraged by her response he elaborated. "Yup. She made everyone forget who they are and took away all their happy endings. There's only one person who can break the curse—Emma."

"Really?" Amy raised her eyebrows. Emma, she noticed, looked as if she wanted to disappear.

"She's the Hope," Henry went on. "Her parents sent her from the fairy-tale world to this one right after she was born, right before the curse took effect. They knew she was the only one who would be able to save them. Her parents are Snow White and Prince Charming, by the way."

_Oh, shit. _What could she say to that? Finally something came to her. "You said everyone in Storybrooke is a fairy-tale character and doesn't know it, and Regina is the Evil Queen and Ashley is Cinderella. Who am I?"

He looked pleased that she seemed to be taking him seriously. "I haven't figured you out yet," he confessed. "Some people are easy to figure out, like Ashley and Dr. Hopper. He's Jiminy Cricket, of course. The umbrella gave him away, that and all his talk about your conscience. Other people are harder, though. I keep going back and rereading, but I still haven't figured out who you really are. I can't figure out Mr. Gold, either. There's nobody in the book like him."

"Midas," Emma said suddenly. "He could be King Midas. His last name is Gold, and you said he's the richest man in town." Over Henry's head, Amy shot her a look. _You don't seriously believe this, do you?_

_Of course not, _Emma replied with her eyes, _but please, just humor him._

Henry appeared oblivious to their wordless exchange. "Nah, he's not Midas," he said dismissively. "There's a picture of King Midas in the book, and Mr. Gold doesn't look anything like him. Everyone looks like their character in the book, at least all the ones I've figured out do. Except Dr. Hopper, of course, but he was a man before he was a cricket."

This was getting crazier by the second. "He was?" Amy said carefully. "I don't remember that about him."

"Yeah, that's another thing that makes it hard to figure people out," he told her. "The stories aren't the same as they are in all the other books. Some of them are pretty close, but they're all a little different. Some of them aren't the same at all."

"Hmm," was all Amy could think of to say. "Well, let me know when you figure it out, OK? In the meantime maybe you should go help Ashley in the kitchen. I just realized she's going to have an awful lot of things to carry." This was true, but of course she really wanted to have a private word with Emma about all this.

"All right," Henry aid equably, jumping up and leaving the room. In the doorway he turned. "I know you don't really believe me, either of you," he said. "It's OK. I guess it does sound kind of weird at first. But it's true." With that, he was gone.

"God," Amy said faintly when the sound of his footsteps faded away.

"You said it," Emma agreed.

"I have to say, I was afraid something like this would happen one day," Amy confessed. "Any child would have a difficult life with Mayor Mills, but a boy as sensitive and imaginative as Henry…well, you've met the woman. Wouldn't you want to escape into a fantasy world?"

"Yeah, I can't say I blame the kid," Emma said. "It's craziness, of course, but I can see where he would get the idea that she was the Evil Queen."

Amy laughed. "I'm with you there," she said. She grew serious then. "And you're going along with this…fairy-tale thing?"

Emma nodded. "I know how it looks, but Dr. Hopper thinks that's best for now. He thinks if we go along with it that Henry will grow out of it on his own."

"Maybe he's right," Amy said. "Maybe having you here will help with that, too." She hesitated a moment before adding, "Are you planning to stay in Storybrooke for a while?"

Emma looked down. "I wasn't originally. My initial plan was to go right back to Boston. But I guess you've heard about the crash, right?" Amy nodded. "I know how that looked, but I swear, I wasn't drunk. I only had one drink at the mayor's before I left."

"I believe you," Amy said, and was mildly surprised to realize that she did believe her.

"Now I'm almost glad it happened, though," Emma continued. "It gave me a chance to stick around and realize how bad things really are for Henry. At first the mayor didn't seem all that bad, but when I mentioned that Henry had shown up on my birthday, right after I blew out the candle on my cupcake and wished I had someone to spend my birthday with…well, her true colors came out then. She was very threatening. To be honest, she hasn't let up since. But I'm not going to let her stop me."

"Not going to let her stop you from what?" Amy asked. She couldn't believe she was having this conversation with a woman she'd met barely ten minutes earlier.

Emma looked her right in the eye. "From helping Henry," she declared. "Not with this curse thing, although I'll go along with him on that for now. But he does need help. Mayor Mills is sending him to therapy, but I don't think that's really what he needs. I think, more than anything, he needs a friend. I'm going to try to be that to him. Maybe it's too late for me to be his mother, but I can at least be his friend."

That did it. Amy decided that she definitely liked this Emma Swan. "I told Henry when he was little that someday, someone was going to come along who cared about him just the way he is," she told the older woman. "I'm glad you're staying here."

Emma smiled. "Thanks," she said. "I think he already had that in you, though. Just from meeting you and seeing how he is with you, I think you're probably the reason he's not more messed up than he is."

Amy was touched. "That might be," she said. "I've always been fond of the little guy. But it's different with me. I was his babysitter. But you're his mother, even if Mayor Mills is his legal guardian. Even if all you can do for him right now is be his friend, surely knowing that his birth mother truly cares about him will do him a lot of good."

"Maybe," Emma said. "I hope you're right. Every child deserves to know that their parents—or parent—cares."

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Amy said suddenly. She didn't want to jeopardize the fragile friendship she was forming with Emma, but this was something she really needed to know. Something she _had _to know. Before she lost her nerve, she blurted "Why did you give Henry up?"

It was like flipping a switch. Emma's face closed, hardened. Hoping to undo the damage, Amy rushed on. "Please don't think I'm being nosy, or judging you; furthest thing from it, in fact. You know I'm pregnant. From what I understand, my situation is a lot like yours was. The baby's father split months ago, and my own father—the only family I have—threw me out of the house when he found out and won't have anything to do with me. I've spent the last few months trying to decide what to do. I really want to keep my baby, but I'm not sure it's the right thing You're the only person I've met who's dealt with this before. That's why I had to ask you."

It worked. Emma's face softened. "I gave him up because…I wanted to give him his best chance," she said, "and at the time, I didn't think that was with me."

Amy was about to ask her to elaborate—did that mean she now thought she'd made the wrong decision?—but right then Henry and Ashley returned. The chance was lost, at least for right then. Amy wasn't too disappointed, though. She had a feeling she'd be seeing a lot more of Emma Swan.

She was right. In a few short weeks, Emma was entrenched in Storybrooke. Granny had been forced to kick her out of the bed-and-breakfast by the mayor, ostensibly due to the "DUI" ("If there's one person in this town I like less than Mr. Gold, it's Mayor Mills," the old woman had fumed on one of her frequent phone calls to Amy), but Mary Margaret Blanchard had saved the day by offering Emma her spare room, an offer Emma had taken her up on after some resistance. Amy was glad Emma had found a semi-permanent place to stay, and also amused when she realized that—according to Henry's theory—Emma was now living with her real mother. (Henry had filled her in on what he believed to be Mary Margaret's true identity.)

As if to atone for the mayor's smear campaign against her, Sheriff Graham offered Emma a job as his deputy. Mayor Mills was most displeased with this development, which in turn pleased Mr. Gold a great deal. Truthfully, most of the citizens of the town were not unhappy to see their sheriff, who was well liked, go up against the mayor, who was not. Very few of them were brave enough to voice this opinion out loud, however.

"I don't get it," Amy had said to Mr. Gold one night at dinner. (He had taken to eating with her in the master suite in the evenings.) She sat on the bed as usual, a lovely teak tray balanced on her lap; he sat in one of the armchairs with a matching tray. That night they were having pizza at Amy's request, though Mr. Gold had been doing most of the cooking since Amy got out of the hospital. Surprisingly, he had turned out to be quite a good cook, as good as Amy herself. "I never liked cooking for just one," he had explained when Amy questioned why a man of his culinary talent had eaten out most of the time until she came to work for him. "Too may leftovers. I don't mind eating leftovers once but after that it gets tiresome. With two people, though, that's not much of a problem—particularly when one of the two is eating for two."

Amy had requested pizza on this night for several reasons. One, she wanted to give Mr. Gold a break. She felt kind of sorry for him. He worked eight hours a day at his pawnshop and then had to come home, cook, and wait hand and foot on an invalid who was supposed to be working for him. Two, she had been craving pizza for some time. And the third reason, the only one she didn't tell him, was that she wanted to see him eat a slice of pizza. He was such a fastidious man, and pizza was definitely not a fastidious food. She wanted to see exactly how he would tackle this.

Much to Amy's private glee, Mr. Gold's solution to the pizza predicament was a knife and fork. She had expected as much. Still, it was hard to contain her smile as she watched him cut his slice of pepperoni and extra cheese into bite-sized pieces. Only Mr. Gold could still look elegant while eating pizza.

"What don't you get, dear?" Mr. Gold responded, although he was pretty sure he knew the answer. They had been discussing the latest extraordinary event to befall the town: the sudden awakening of the coma patient known only as "John Doe". Not only had the man awakened from his years-long coma (exactly _how _many years it had lasted no one was sure), he had managed to wander out of the hospital undetected and into the woods surrounding Storybrooke before being found by Sheriff Graham, Emma, Henry and Mary Margaret. The latter three had become involved in the search thanks to Henry's newest conjecture, that the comatose man was really Prince Charming, husband of Snow White (Mary Margaret) and father to Emma. Emma hadn't yet been deputized by Sheriff Graham; her help in tracking down John Doe had been what gave him the idea in the first place.

Unfortunately, "Snow White" and "Prince Charming"'s happy ending had been marred by the discovery that John Doe was in fact one David Nolan, the long-missing husband of Kathryn. He had stormed out after an argument one day, the woman said, and when he never returned she naturally assumed that he had left her for good. Amy didn't buy it. She had never once thought to check the hospital? That had been Amy's first thought the night Mr. Gold went missing; wouldn't it be anyone's first instinct? Regina's involvement in the matter (she had been listed as the unidentified man's emergency contact, had supposedly been the one who found him comatose in the first place, and had somehow produced the man's identity and wife within hours of his awakening) was also a red flag to Amy. Not that Amy believed that she was the Evil Queen, but the woman was definitely devious. And she was definitely up to something, and it could probably be filed under the category of "no good".

Once Mr. Gold had told her of the saga of John Doe/David Nolan, the conversation had turned to Emma's lengthening stay in Storybrooke, and from there turned to Henry and Mayor Mills. It was while discussing Mayor Mills' more objectionable personality traits that Amy had made her proclamation.

"No one likes Mayor Mills, not even her own son. How on earth did she ever get elected Mayor? How does she keep getting elected?" It was something Amy had always wondered about, but never voiced. But with Mr. Gold it was all right. He was the only other citizen in town with as much wealth and power as the Mayor, and there was no love lost between them. Amy knew she was safe speaking her mind about the mayor to Mr. Gold.

"Well, it's quite simple, really," Mr. Gold said, laying his tray aside and leaning forward a bit. "She got elected in the first place because no one ran against her, and she keeps getting elected the same way."

"No one's run against her? Not ever?" Amy was incredulous.

"No, dear. Different people have discussed doing so from time to time, but nothing ever comes of it. She always seems to unearth some unsavory bit of information about anyone who even thinks of running, and she has no qualms about making the information public. She literally ruined a couple of prospective candidates. After that, I think people just decided to leave well enough alone."

"But that's illegal!"

"Not really. She always makes sure that no one can directly link her to the information she unearths. And don't forget, she has both the sheriff and the editor of the town paper under her thumb. It's quite easy for her to dredge up someone's sordid past and come out smelling like a rose."

Amy was disgusted. "God, what a vile woman. I always knew there was something off about her, but I didn't realize she was that bad. My father is small time compared to her." She spoke of her father matter-of-factly, without rancor. Joe Miller still hadn't seen or spoken to his daughter, even when he'd been informed of her medical crisis. Amy had wept over this not a few times, but as time passed she had put it behind her as best she could.

"Quite," Mr. Gold agreed. "I think things are about to take a turn, though. It seems that one of her minions has suddenly developed a mind of his own."

"Graham." It wasn't a guess. Amy couldn't picture the obsequious Sidney Glass ever turning on the mayor.

"Of course. I think the arrival of Miss Swan…opened his eyes, shall we say. Perhaps in more ways than one."

Amy leaned forward, eager to hear this bit of gossip. "You think Sheriff Graham has a thing for Emma?"

"Based on the few times I've seen them together, I would say yes. And what's more, I think Miss Swan reciprocates the feeling, although I don't believe she herself is aware of that yet."

"Graham and Emma." Amy pondered this for a minute. Finally, she broke into a grin. "I can see it. They'd make a cute couple. I wonder what Henry would think. I've always thought he liked the sheriff even if he is kind of Regina's toady. Just imagine if Graham started working against her _and _hooked up with Henry's real mother."

"Yes, it would be something," Mr. Gold said distantly. Though he was still looking at Amy his gaze was suddenly far off, as though he saw a different scene than the one actually before him. In fact he was trying to remember his past, something he'd found himself doing more and more lately. It seemed to him that he had once known another young couple much like Emma and Graham—a beautiful, spirited woman and a handsome, strong man. But who had they been, and where had he known them? The answer wouldn't come.

Amy's voice brought him back to the present. "Mr. Gold?" she was asking. "Is everything all right?"

He smiled. "Of course, dear. I was just woolgathering." The flash of memory, if that was indeed what it was, vanished like a puff of smoke. "What were you saying?"

She was staring at him with a more serious expression than he ever remembered seeing on her face. "I was just saying that it's funny," she said. "My father is a rotter through and through, yet people like and respect him because of the face he presents to the world. People don't like Regina, but they do seem to respect her, because she also presents a false face. But people are afraid of you, even though you don't pretend to be anything other than what you are…and you're the only one of the lot who has a good heart, deep down."

_Oh, my dear, if you only knew, _he thought. Guilt rose in his throat like nausea, a feeling he had rarely experienced until the advent of Amy Miller. A good heart, she said. If she had had any inkling as to his plans for her child, he knew she would not believe that. She would fear and despise him just as much as the rest of Storybrooke, maybe more.

The hell of it was, he was starting to believe she might be right. It seemed to him now that once, long ago, he _had _been a good man. He couldn't pinpoint any concrete remembrance to confirm this, but instinctively he knew it to be true. He had been a good man once, a kind-hearted, gentle man…until…until what? What had transformed him into the calculating, ruthless businessman he was now? He couldn't recall just what had shaped him into who he was today, but he knew full well what was threatening to transform him back into that long-ago good man—the young woman before him.

This was not the time for these thoughts, however. He fully intended to think this over, but now was not the time. He thought for a moment how to respond to her statement and bring the matter to an end.

"I think," he said slowly, "that sometimes people are more comfortable with a 'false face' as you call it, than with someone who dares to be true to themselves." Yes, that was good. To wrap this conversation up he cast about for a suitable distraction, and thought of one. "Oh, I almost forgot—I have a surprise for dessert."

Amy knew he wanted to change the subject. A man like Mr. Gold was not going to open his heart in one night. She was succeeding in drawing him out slowly, bit by bit, and that was how she would continue to do. So she went along with the new topic. "Really? What's that?"

He only smiled mysteriously as he collected their dishes and left the room. A few minutes later he returned with two dessert plates, on which rested what Amy immediately recognized as Boston cream pie. She adored Boston cream pie and had mentioned this fact at some time or another to him, and he had obviously remembered. She was pleased, but not surprised; she had long ago deduced that Mr. Gold listened closely to even the most innocuous conversations, and remembered what he heard.

"Oh, sweet!" she said, clapping her hands. He smiled at her enthusiasm as he handed her her plate. "Did you get this at Granny's?"

"I did," he confirmed. "She made it especially for you." He decided not to mention how nonplussed the old woman had been at his request, and the fish-eye she had given him when he stopped by the diner to pick it up. Even with his recent kindnesses towards Amy, and towards Mrs. Woods herself, it was plain to see she still suspected him of being up to something. _How right she is, _he thought cynically. But just he was up to now even he couldn't say. A few months earlier, he would have said he was trying to charm Amy and gain her trust. But he had already done that. There was still something about her, though, that made him delight in showering her with small treats and surprises…something in him that shrank away from thinking too deeply about how he would ultimately use her.

"And that's not all," he said. "I thought you might like to watch a movie, so I stopped at Video Palace—odd name, don't you think? They only carry DVDs now—and rented one."

Amy gaped for a moment at the thought of Mr. Gold in Video Palace, somewhere she was certain he had never set foot in before. (She was right.) "What did you get?" she asked.

"Something I thought we could both enjoy," he said as he opened he armoire to reveal the state-of-the-art TV and DVD player within.

Knowing Mr. Gold, she expected an old black-and-white movie from the thirties or forties, which would have been fine with her; she enjoyed old movies. Or perhaps a foreign film. The latter turned out to be correct, in a way: the movie Mr. Gold had chosen was _Sense and Sensibility, _one of her all-time favorites. "Oh, I love this one!" she bubbled. "You will, too."

And he did enjoy it. But the part he enjoyed most of all was when Amy turned to him, still seated in one of the chairs, and said, "Mr. Gold, why don't you get comfortable? Sit here on the bed. I know you must be worn out, and you can see better from here anyway."

He considered a denial, but before he realized it he was taking off his suit jacket and shoes and stretching out next to her (on the other end of the bed, of course; he didn't want to alarm her or anything by sitting closer). She was surprised he had actually done so. Surprised, but pleased. Somehow he looked younger without the jacket. She still had no idea of his true age, but seeing him in a more relaxed manner than she had ever witnessed previously, she found herself putting him closer to forty than fifty. Not really so very old at all. And she noticed again what she had seen a few times before: in his way, Mr. Gold was an attractive man.

As the movie progressed, they found themselves sitting closer and closer to one another. Neither was really sure how this happened, but both assumed the other must be moving unconsciously. In truth, they had both moved. So it was when Amy grew drowsy, about the time Willoughby deserted Marianne, she was able to rest her head on Mr. Gold's shoulder. She closed her eyes for what she intended to be only a minute or two.

When she woke again the movie was already over. The DVD had returned to the main menu and the music was blaring unheeded. The lamps were still on. And Mr. Gold was still lying beside her, now deeply asleep himself.

His face in repose was surprisingly gentle. Amy fought the urge to touch it, to plant a kiss on those thin but nicely shaped lips. He had a real man's mouth, she decided, firm and masculine but capable, she now saw, of softness. She liked that about him; she had never really been into what Ruby called "pillow lips" on a guy.

"Mr. Gold," she whispered, nudging him. she knew he'd be aghast when he woke up to find he'd been sleeping next to her, but wanted to prevent him further embarrassment by letting him wake on his own. "Mr. Gold, wake up."

"Mmm," he murmured. He tossed his head a bit from side to side but otherwise didn't stir.

_Well, _Amy thought, _I can say I tried. _She slipped under the covers and rolled over on her side, her back to him, barely touching him but touching him nonetheless. The warmth of his body beside her felt good, familiar somehow, comforting. Within a few minutes she was asleep again.

Once her deep, even breathing told him she was well and truly out again, Mr. Gold eased just a tiny bit closer. He wasn't sure what had come over him. That was another new emotion Amy had awakened in him: never before could he recall craving another's closeness. He knew it would go no further, though, because he wouldn't allow it. He would simply enjoy this moment, without letting himself dream of more. The feeling of her next to him was right, somehow. It was enough.

Before many more minutes had passed, he, too, was asleep again.

**This was originally part of a much longer chapter, but I decided to split it in two. This seemed to be a good stopping point. I'm toying with changing the rating back to T, at least for now, since nothing too graphic has been written and further sexytime is still a ways off (Amy is in the middle of a high-risk pregnancy, after all). I know it's a bit fluffy but I tried not to let Mr. Gold get too OOC, or at least I tried to explain what's making him seem that way. Let me know what you think—if I should leave it at M or change it back to T.**

**It seems that Storybrooke's most unlikely couple is getting close to discovering their happy ending, but don't worry. Everyone's favorite Evil Queen is not at all happy about this set of circumstances, and she won't go down without a fight. I'm still tweaking the second part of this chapter but hope to have it up soon. I'll be going out of town for a couple of days, so I wanted to get this part up before I left.**

**Random thought: some savvy Youtuber totally needs to make a fanvid of Mr. Gold set to ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man". That little ole band from Texas is right, every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man. And every girl crazy 'bout a morally ambiguous character. Combining the two, it's no wonder Mr. Gold (Rumple) has become such a FF darling.**

**Hugs and kisses and Boston cream pies to everyone who reads, favorites, and reviews my story. I would ask for more reviews, but the truth is I'm terrible about reviewing myself. There are several stories on here I adore—I gave some of them a shoutout last chapter—but when it comes to reviewing I never know what to say without lapsing into the land of squee. (And there are a lot of Mr. Gold squee stories on here.) **

**And I am once again carrying on the tradition of having my author's note be longer than the chapter, so I will sign off for now. Be happy, be safe, be loved! **


	8. Chapter 8

**Warning: this is a long freaking chapter. It skips around a bit, too. Some of the events take place before those of the last chapter. Hope it's not too confusing.**

CHAPTER 8

Emma Swan did return to visit Amy a few times. Often she would come with Henry after he had gotten out of school for the day, but a few times she came alone. It didn't escape Amy's notice that she always timed her visits, whether solo or with Henry in tow, for when she knew Mr. Gold would be away from the house. But that wasn't really so unusual. On the days when Ruby stayed with her, her friend would all but bolt from the house the moment he returned home for the evening. Ashley was slightly more comfortable with her former employer, but even she never lingered once he came home. Although Amy had grown to like and trust her benefactor, it was plain that the rest of Storybrooke still saw him as a sinister character.

They never did discuss Emma's reasons for giving up Henry or whether she felt like it had been the right decision. There were several reasons for this, the main one being that Emma's few solo visits were rather short, especially after she became deputy. Most times she would drop by during her shift, so her calls were understandably foreshortened. Another reason was that Emma was "close-mouthed as the devil" (in the words of Sheriff Graham, who occasionally stopped by himself) regarding her past. Amy felt it would be best to get to know the woman a bit better before bringing up such a sensitive subject again. But it was academic anyway; although Amy's heart was broken, her mind was made up. She was going to place her child for adoption.

The very night after she met Emma Swan for the first time, Mr. Gold decided that the time had arrived at last to talk to Amy about her plans for the baby. She was finishing the light supper Ashley had prepared for her and watching a _Family Guy _rerun when he poked his head in.

"Good evening, dear," he said, just as he usually did. "Mind if I come in?"

As always Amy was pleased to see him. "Hi, Mr. Gold," she said. "Yes, of course you can come in." It felt strange to be inviting him into what was technically his own bedroom.

He smiled and entered. "Good, you've eaten," he said when he saw the tray on her lap holding the remains of the grilled cheese and tomato soup Ashley had fixed for her. "Are you feeling well?"

"I feel great," she said. "I feel just as good as I did before the contractions, really. I can't believe I'm going to be stuck in bed for the next few months."

"I know that will be difficult for you," he told her as he moved to sit in one of the armchairs by the bed. "You're used to being up and around constantly, even with your pregnancy. I know you'll follow Dr. Dockery's orders, though. We certainly don't want anything like what happened a few nights ago happening again."

"No, we don't," Amy agreed. "That was not one of my life's more pleasant experiences. If that was even a taste of what real labor will be like, I'm definitely not opting for natural childbirth."

He laughed. "I doubt anyone could blame you for that," he said. He grew serious then. "Have you given any more thought to what you'll do once the baby is born?" he asked.

Amy was a little caught off guard by the sudden change in subject, but she felt at ease enough with him now to discuss the matter more openly than she had the last time he broached the topic. "Yes," she responded. "I told you the first night I was here that I really wanted to keep her, but I didn't think it was possible." She fell silent.

"And?" he pressed gently.

She sighed. "And I haven't changed my mind," she answered. "Believe me, I've thought and thought about how I could raise a baby on my own, but I just can't see how I'd be able to manage. I have no money, a twelfth-grade education, no family to speak of. I know Ruby and her grandmother and Ashley would help me any way they could, but none of them are much better off than me financially, and I wouldn't feel right accepting help from them."

"And the baby's father?" Mr. Gold queried. "You don't think there's any chance he'll change his mind and return…decide to accept his responsibilities?" He anticipated her negative answer, but he wanted to cover all the bases.

She shook her head slowly, a little sadly. "I seriously doubt it," she said. After all this time, she finally felt ready to open up to Mr. Gold about Todd. "He…wasn't the guy I thought he was."

"I'm betting that many young women in your situation come to that conclusion eventually," he said gravely. "At least you figured it out early on."

Again she shook her head. "No, I mean literally, he wasn't who he said he was. He told me he was from Augusta, that he had been planning to go on a trip down the coast before he started at the university in the fall, but when he came to Storybrooke he liked the town so much he decided to spend the summer here instead. I believed him, of course; why wouldn't I? It wasn't until he left that I decided to Google him and found out there was no record of a Todd Prince in Augusta. I checked the University in Orono, which is where he said he was going, but there was no record of him there either. I checked all the other colleges and universities in that area, but he wasn't enrolled at any of them. It's like he vanished into thin air…or never existed at all."

Gold had to admire the girl's resourcefulness. "It sounds like you made quite an effort to locate him," he told her.

She smirked a little. "Yeah, I did. At first it was because I was still in love with him in spite of everything"- she shook her head yet again, this time in self-disgust—"but luckily I got over that pretty quickly. Then I kept trying because I figured he would need to sign away his rights once the baby was born, so I could go ahead with an adoption. I didn't want him coming back years from now and saying I never told him about the baby and causing trouble for the adoptive parents. I don't think he _would _do that, but you never know."

"You can place the child for adoption without his consent, you know," Gold informed her kindly. "All you have to do is list the father as 'Unknown' on the birth certificate."

She looked as if she might cry then, but to his relief she didn't. "I know," she admitted. "I didn't want to do that, though. I mean, what if she finds her birth certificate one day? She'll think her birth mother was a slut. But I guess that's what I'll have to do. In a way it's true, I guess—I really _didn't _know him." She grew silent then, looking pensively into space.

Gold decided then that if he ever came across the father of Amy Miller's child, he would do everything in his power to make the man wish he had never been born. He was touched that Amy finally trusted him enough to reveal the duplicitous nature of her baby's father to him; he could tell that although she put on a brave face, she had been deeply hurt by the discovery and still felt pain over it. He didn't like to see her forced to relive these memories, and from a business standpoint it really had no bearing anyway. He decided to move on.

"If you want to pursue an adoption," he said gently, "it's time to go ahead and make some plans. You're nearly six months pregnant; you only have a few months to find a home for the baby."

This jolted her from her reverie. She raised a startled face to him. "Find a home?" she asked. "I thought I would just sign the papers when she was born and the state would take it from there."

Here it was—the very thing he'd intended to bring up from the beginning. It was high time to do so. So why, he wondered, now that the time was finally here, was he so reluctant?

Because, he admitted to himself, he cared for her. At some point over the past few months, his feelings for her had moved beyond simple liking, past mere physical attraction. Although he didn't recall ever feeling the emotion before, Mr. Gold thought he might be in love with Amy Miller.

He had tried to deny it to himself, but it was true. He was infatuated with the girl. He thought of her at odd moments during the day. He lived for the moment each evening when he would walk through the front door and find her there, smiling, happy to see him. He relished each and every conversation they had, often replaying them in his mind days, weeks, and months later for his own enjoyment. He loved to look at her; he now found her to be breathtakingly beautiful even when she wasn't smiling, as she so often was. He grew livid at the thought of anything or anyone causing her pain. If he was truly honest with himself, he had to admit that his own use of her for his own ends made him sick with guilt. Had he had even a glimmer of hope that she might return those feelings, he would do everything he could to help her keep her baby. If he thought there was even a small chance she wouldn't be repelled by the idea, he would even ask her to marry him and raise her child as his own.

But there was no hope of that. She was young, beautiful, innocent in her own strange way. Even though she had known the physical joys and crushing disappointment of love, she still had a pure, unworldly quality about her he thought she would retain no matter how many lovers she took. He was old, lame, and, he was forced to admit to himself if no one else, corrupt—the very antithesis of everything she was. All he had to offer her was his wealth, and she wasn't the sort of girl who cared for material things. That she could ever feel anything approaching love for him was unthinkable. In her desperation to keep her child, he thought she might agree to a marriage of convenience with him; though he would have been satisfied with this at one time, he found now that he couldn't bear to think of such a thing. If he couldn't have her completely, as his true wife for the right reasons, he wouldn't have her at all.

So he would stick with his original plan. He would find a suitable adoptive family for the child and arrange a private adoption. He would accept his broker's fee, though he no longer cared about that. He would have papers drawn up that would stand up to an examination in a court of law. There were several reputable attorneys in the area who owed him favors, and any one of them would do this for him. He would tell Amy that the sum she would receive was not a payment for her child, but rather a standard gift in private adoptions that was mean to cover her expenses during the pregnancy. Since he had paid and would continue to cover her pregnancy expenses, the money would be hers to do with as she wished. It would be a sizable amount, too; he would make sure of that. She would be able to move on with her life, and he hoped she would find the happiness she deserved.

With this resolve it was easier for him to continue with the original offer he had intended. "You could do that," he said slowly, carefully. "However, I wouldn't advise it. Adoptions through the state can be very…complicated. Now most likely, your baby, being a newborn, would be adopted right away. But you would have no idea as to what sort of family she was going to, and there's always the chance that the adoption could fall through. If that happened, more than likely the baby would end up in the system. And the sad truth is that once a child is in the system, it often stays there. I would recommend a private adoption instead."

Amy shivered at the thought of her precious baby in the foster-care system. Although there was no such system in Storybrooke, she had read enough and seen enough movies and TV shows to know what the system was like, and the terrible things that often happened to children who were in it. Surely that wouldn't happen to her child. But after everything she had gone through with this baby, she wasn't willing to take any chances.

"A private adoption…" she mused. "Yes, I think that would be the best thing." She gazed at him with those guileless blue eyes, and he had to swallow a sudden lump in his throat. "How would I go about that, though? I don't know where to begin."

With tremendous effort he managed a crooked smile. As he finally made his offer, no one ever would have guessed that his heart was breaking.

"I can help you," he said.

…

She had agreed, of course. How could she not? With what Mr. Gold was proposing, her baby would go immediately to a couple who were desperate for a child and had the means to give her everything she could ever want or need. If she turned the baby over to the state, there were no guarantees, and she would never know for sure whether her daughter had been quickly adopted into a loving home, or ended up as just one more child in the foster system. It was one thing to give her child up knowing she would be going to a good home, quite another to leave her to an uncertain fate with the state.

And Mr. Gold was going to arrange for her to have some choice in the parents. Though she still thought a closed adoption would be best, as he had told her that first night there were ways to find the right set of prospective parents even if she would never know their identity. He had promised to contact several attorneys he knew who specialized in adoption. They would have client lists and would be able to prepare dossiers for her to look through that would give her a good idea as to the kind of people they were, without revealing any identifying information. The attorneys would also prepare a dossier on her, Amy, also leaving out any telltale identification. When Amy found a couple that sounded right, that couple would be given her dossier. If the couple thought _she _sounded right, there would be calls and e-mails, though a face-to-face meeting was, of course, out of the question. In this way, Amy would have at least some knowledge of the family that was going to raise her child. After the birth and the adoption all communication would cease, but at least she would have gotten to know them, hopefully enough to know that she had made the right choice.

She was lucky, she knew. Without Mr. Gold's help, she likely would have had no option but to turn over her baby to the state. There was only one law firm in Storybrooke, and none of the attorneys there handled adoptions. Being on bed rest, traveling to another city was impossible. But Mr. Gold had contacts throughout Maine and the Northeast, all of whom, he assured her, would be happy to work with her.

Mr. Gold had been a godsend, all right. Fate had finally smiled on her when she met him in the park that day. She still thought it was a pity no one else in town saw the things in him that she did, and the kindness he was capable of. A small part of her (well, maybe not such a small part) still wished there could be something more between them. But she realized it was unlikely. Though she knew he truly cared for her, she believed he viewed her as…not a daughter, exactly…maybe more like a niece. There was no way a wealthy and sophisticated man like that could ever have romantic feelings for her.

As grateful as she was to Mr. Gold, after he had left her that evening Amy cried herself to sleep. Until now she had hoped against hope that some eleventh-hour miracle would happen and she would be able to keep her little girl. But now things were moving forward. There would be no _deus ex machina_. It was time to stop wishing and do what was best for the baby.

But as she fell asleep that night her final thought was a prayer to a God she wasn't even sure she believed in: "Please God, help me find a way to keep my baby."

…

After that night they rarely spoke of the adoption plan. Knowing the subject was painful for her he avoided bringing it up, keeping their conversations to lighter topics, including the perennial favorite of what she was reading currently. This was when he began to take his meals with her in the evenings. On Sundays, when the shop was closed, they would breakfast together as well. Often he stayed with her until she was ready to go to sleep. They would watch TV (they both enjoyed crime procedurals) or play chess (she had never played before, but caught on with surprising speed) or Amy's especial favorite, Scrabble. They had some intense Scrabble games; though Amy had an extensive vocabulary due to her love of reading, Mr. Gold had retained most of his Scots dialect from growing up in Glasgow (although he remembered almost nothing of his early life, he knew he was a native Glaswegian; he had emigrated to America…sometime). This led to some passionate competitions.

Occasionally Amy herself would bring up the adoption, asking if he had heard anything from the attorneys. He would assure her that they were all compiling information on prospective parents, which he would get to her as soon as he had received it. She was usually satisfied with that answer and would move on to another, brighter subject.

A week after Amy had come home from the hospital Thanksgiving arrived. Granny and Ruby had invited her to have dinner with them, but she declined. She told Mr. Gold she didn't think she was up for a car trip into town just yet, but her real reason was that she didn't want to leave him alone on the holiday. She guessed, correctly, that he had spent most of his holidays alone. She knew what that was like and didn't wish it on anyone, especially not on the man who had been so good to her.

Mr. Gold seemed sincerely pleased that she would be spending the holiday with him and declared that he would cook their Thanksgiving dinner. Amy raised her eyebrows at that, but she was in for a surprise. When she came to the dining room at noon on the big day (Doc had OK'd her getting up for dinner, as long as she returned to bed immediately after) the table was laden with a feast: glazed Rock Cornish hens, wild-rice pilaf, and roasted Brussels sprouts. Once again Mr. Gold had laid the table with china, crystal and silver, and had even thought to buy a pretty fall floral arrangement for a centerpiece. It looked like a magazine spread.

And everything tasted as wonderful as it looked. Amy ate until she was stuffed. She even ate the Brussels sprouts, which she had never liked before, but the way Mr. Gold had prepared them, caramelized with shallots, they were delicious. For dessert there was pumpkin pie; the pie, Mr. Gold jokingly confessed, was from the bakery in town.

Despite the formal atmosphere of the dining room it was an entirely laid-back, pleasant meal. Amy told him later that she couldn't remember a better Thanksgiving, and he had to admit that he couldn't either. After dinner they repaired to the master suite per Doc's orders and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade (it was a Storybrooke tradition that the parade aired in reruns all day on the local station).

"I'd love to get to actually go one day," she said to Mr. Gold as they watched the marching bands.

He smiled at her. "Maybe you will."

She grew wistful. "I always thought, someday when I was married and had children, we would go to New York City for Thanksgiving one year. We'd watch the parade and have dinner somewhere really fabulous, and we'd stay through the weekend to see the Christmas decorations."

He reached for her hand. "You'll get to do that one day," he promised her.

Once the parade was over they sat around just talking for a long time. Amy told him the little she could remember of her childhood, and many stories of her teen years, which she did remember fairly well. There were some sad stories, mainly having to do with her father (birthdays that had been forgotten, events he hadn't shown up to) but there were some happy ones as well, mainly involving Ruby and Ashley. Some of her tales had him laughing out loud.

One of these anecdotes also solved a nearly decade-old mystery involving one of the town landmarks, a huge marble statue of a steed that resided in the park. Eight or nine years previously, some unknown delinquent or delinquents had placed a goodly amount of fresh horse manure directly underneath the noble steed's hindquarters. Regina Mills had been furious, since she had commissioned the statue herself (there was even a replica of it in her office at City Hall). She had gone so far as to offer a $250 reward for any information leading to the culprit or culprits. It did no good; the vandal or vandals were never apprehended. No one knew for sure who had done it, although several people were suspected. The prank was still legendary among the schoolchildren of Storybrooke, as well as not a few adults.

As Mr. Gold recalled, Ruby Woods' name had been bandied about as a possible suspect. No one had ever been able to link her to it, though; the defacement had occurred in the dead of night, while most of Storybrooke was fast asleep. It had remained one of the many mysteries of the town—until now. Amy admitted to him that Ruby had most definitely been involved, but it had been Amy herself who masterminded the practical joke. They had snuck out in the middle of the night to the stables at the edge of town, where there was naturally an abundance of horse turds. They had filled a large bucket with the droppings and managed to carry it all the way back to the park and complete their mischief without bringing attention to themselves.

Gold roared with laughter at the story. He actually had tears of mirth in his eyes. He had found the incident humorous when it occurred, mainly because it was a rare and entertaining sight to witness the icy mayor hopping mad. Finding out all these years later that the brains behind the incident had been none other than the shy, sweet girl who currently shared his home, his enjoyment was increased tenfold. There was much more to Amy Miller than met the eye. Underneath that introverted, bookish façade was a streak of spirit and irreverence. He had sensed it from the beginning, caught glimpses of it from time to time, and now had proof of it. Who _couldn't _fall in love with such a girl?

"You're lucky you two weren't trampled to death by a team of spooked horses," he managed to gasp once he could finally speak again.

Amy smiled. "They were all in their stalls. I was worried they would cause a commotion when we came in so late at night, but they didn't. Then again, they knew us. We'd been taking riding lessons at the stables for a couple of years by then. I remember that was one of the reasons people suspected Ruby. The funny thing is, I was taking lessons at the stable too, and everyone knew Ruby and I were best friends. But so far as I know my name was never even brought up."

Granny had known, though, she told him. "The minute we came in to the diner that day after school, Granny called us into the back room. She looked us dead in the eye and said, 'I can't prove it, but I know it was you two. Which one of you came up with the idea?' I confessed, of course, because I didn't want Ruby to take the fall. I figured she was going to take a switch to both of us. But she just smiled and shook her head and said, 'Well, at least you were smart enough not to do it in broad daylight. For God's sake, Ruby, try not to open your mouth and fall in it when people start speculating. Knowing Mayor Mills, she would probably send you to juvenile detention.' Then she told us to go get ourselves some pie. She never said another word about it."

"I should call up Regina and ask her if the reward still stands," Gold threatened playfully.

Amy giggled. "Wonder if there's a statute of limitations on defacement of a town landmark."

"If there isn't, she would probably come up with one," he smirked.

Later she brought out one of her most treasured items—a small wooden chest filled with photographs and other mementoes. Gold enjoyed looking through the pictures of her and her friends at different ages. He couldn't help noticing that in the pictures of her with her friends, Amy stared straight into the camera and smiled gaily. In the few pictures of her and her father, however, her smile was tentative, forced. There were no photographs of her mother in the box.

When he asked about this she shook her head. "I don't have any pictures of her. I guess my father might have some, but he must have put them away. The only one he left out was their wedding picture on the mantel. There probably weren't that many pictures of her to begin with; Granny said she hated to have her photograph taken."

Mr. Gold nodded. "I can see that," he said. "I barely knew your mother, but I remember she was a very introverted young woman, much more so than you. You're really only shy on the surface; you can be drawn out eventually. Your mother, though, was almost pathologically shy. Everyone was surprised when she began to date Joe Miller, and eventually married him. He was very outgoing and gregarious, almost her polar opposite."

Amy was surprised. "Really?" Though her father put on an act in public as a bluff and hearty hail-fellow-well-met, at home he had always been silent and sullen. She had always assumed his jovial public persona was for appearances' sake only. Was it possible that once he really had been the man most people still saw him as?

"Oh, yes," Mr. Gold said, a faraway look in his eye. "Your father was…different then. He was young, of course, just starting out in business. I didn't know him much better than your mother, but I would meet him in town from time to time and he was always friendly. Very few people are towards me, you know, but he was." He said this without rancor.

"Well, of course," Amy reasoned. "If you and he had business dealings together—"

Gold interrupted. "That's just it, though. We didn't start doing business together until much later. At that point, he was strictly on the up-and-up. I used to wonder how he would ever make a go of his career, as scrupulously honest as he was, but he did quite well, mainly because everybody liked him."

Amy was flabbergasted. "Are you sure this is my father you're talking about?" she asked incredulously. "Maybe you're thinking of somebody else."

Gold smiled at her a little sadly. "No, dear. Your father was another man in those days. Now that I think of it, maybe it shouldn't have been so surprising that your mother came out of her shell for him. He was a good-looking young man, tall and strapping, with that curly dark hair. You have his hair, you know. But mostly you look like your mother."

Amy smiled with shy pleasure. "I do?" Granny had told her this before, and she'd always thought she resembled her mother judging from the wedding picture. But somehow it was nice to hear it from Mr. Gold.

"Very much so," he assured her. "Grace was a very pretty young woman. Her hair was dark blonde, but you have her eyes…and her smile." He was a little amazed that he remembered all this so well. He hoped Amy wouldn't be saddened by his reminiscences, but she didn't seem to be so far. On the contrary, she seemed intrigued and interested. He supposed no one had told her very much about her parents in their younger days.

"They met when your mother went to work as his secretary," he continued. Amy nodded; Granny had told her this as well. "Apparently it was love at first sight for both of them. They began dating right away and were married within a few months. It was quite like a romantic movie, actually."

Amy had to ask. "And exactly how many months after the wedding did I come along?" This explained a lot, she thought to herself. Her mother must have gotten pregnant unexpectedly and her father had felt trapped into marrying her. No wonder he had always treated her the way he did. He had probably never wanted her to begin with.

Mr. Gold's answer squashed that theory, however. "You weren't born for quite some time, dear. I'm not sure exactly how long they'd been married, but it was a couple of years, at least, between the wedding and your birth."

"So it wasn't a shotgun wedding?" The information came as a surprise. It certainly didn't fit what she knew of her father.

"Well, that was the general assumption at first," he admitted. "As time went by, though, it became apparent that Grace wasn't pregnant, and that she and Joe were quite literally crazy for one another. I would see them out and about occasionally. Grace was still very quiet, but Joe managed to draw her out a bit. Her whole face would light up whenever she looked at him, and he, he looked at her as if she were some sort of precious jewel. When she _did _become pregnant—with you, obviously—your father was the happiest man alive. The day they found out you were going to be a girl, Joe came into the diner and handed out a big box of 'It's A Girl' cigars. He even gave me one. I wish you could have known your parents together. The man Joe was then would have made you an excellent father. Unfortunately, when Grace died, it seems as if the best part of him died with her. It was as though someone just pulled the heart right out of him."

She was silent for a long moment. "No wonder he can't stand me, then," she said finally. "I took the only thing he loved away from him."

"I don't think that's it exactly," Mr. Gold said gently. "It's probably true that whenever he sees you he thinks of the wife he lost. You look so like her. But I don't think it's you, yourself he can't stand. I don't believe he blames you for her death, either. If I had to guess, I would say he blames himself. Not that he should. As far as I know, Grace was perfectly healthy. Her pregnancy with you was uncomplicated. I'm not exactly sure what went wrong during the birth…"

"She hemorrhaged," Amy nearly whispered. "The doctors did everything they could to stop it, but it happened too fast and she lost too much blood. She died just a few minutes after I was born."

"That's what I heard, but in Storybrooke you can never be sure," Mr. Gold said. "The gossip mill is always running overtime here. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that _no one _was responsible for your mother's death. It wasn't your fault; you were just a tiny baby. It wasn't Joe's fault; he couldn't have known what was going to happen, and I believe he would have died himself to save her if he'd been given the choice. It wasn't even the doctors' fault; as you said, they did everything they could. It was just one of those terrible twists of fate. But I believe the combination of his guilt and his grief is what caused him to hold you at arm's length all your life."

His words gave Amy some comfort. For the first time, she realized that maybe what Mr. Gold said was true. She had always grieved for the mother she had never known, but now a part of her reached out to include her father in that grief—the handsome, vibrant young man who had loved her mother beyond reason. She had never really known him either, she saw now.

"Maybe I should try to talk to him again," she mused. "Maybe, if we could just sit down and hash things out…" She trailed off.

"Maybe you should," Gold agreed carefully. "I'm not so sue that now is the time, though. It's likely to be very emotional, and you're in a delicate condition. Perhaps after the baby is born and you've recovered your strength would be a better time to reach out to him."

"You're right," Amy agreed. "Right now I need to think about the baby. There's plenty of time to try to work things out later." She gave him a smile of pure gratitude. "I'm so lucky to have you, Mr. Gold. You've helped me so much. Not just materially, although you've been more than generous there, but you've helped me figure so many things out as well. If I do manage to set things right with my father I'll have you to thank for it."

Guilt nearly choked him at her sincere words. He hid it well, however. Once almost completely unknown to him, guilt had become his constant companion over the past few months. "I hope," he said, not entirely succeeding at keeping the emotion from his words, "I truly hope, Amy, that all the good in this world comes to you. I don't know of anyone who deserves it more." Quickly he rose. "But now I think it's time you went to sleep. You've had a big day, after all; your first time out of bed in a week. You need to rest up."

"All right," Amy said agreeably, for she _was _tired, and she also had a lot to think about. "Night, Mr. Gold."

He leaned forward and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, then dared to kiss her swiftly on the cheek. She looked a bit surprised, but nothing more. He knew she saw the kiss as nothing more than an avuncular gesture. "Good night, my dear," he half-whispered, then left the room as fast as his lame leg would allow.

Amy ruminated for a time on the revelations of the evening, but soon enough her eyes began to close. She was asleep as soon as she turned off the bedside lamp and laid her head on the pillow, and her sleep was deep and dreamless.

But Mr. Gold, closeted in the library in his favorite chair, a glass of neat Scotch by his side, never slept at all that night.

…

As the holidays approached, interesting events continued to occur in Storybrooke. Insulated as she was in Mr. Gold's home, Amy was still kept informed of the goings-on in the town by Ashley, Ruby, Emma, and Mr. Gold himself.

The most major occurrence happened in early December, when Henry, upset about something, had run away again. He had sought refuge in the old mine at the edge of town, which his adoptive mother had been promising to have covered over for as long as anyone could remember. Dr. Hopper had realized where he most likely had gone and had followed him into the mine. There had been a small earthquake—unusual in their part of Maine, but not unheard of—and they had both become trapped in the mineshaft.

Emma's first major act as deputy of Storybrooke had been rescuing her son and his psychiatrist from the mineshaft. It was only through the intervention of Dr. Hopper's beloved Dalmatian, Pongo, that she had realized they were in the old mine elevator; when the entrance to the mine had been dynamited in an earlier effort to save the two, it had actually driven the elevator further underground. Thankfully she had followed Pongo's nose and her own instinct, and what could have been a terrible tragedy had a happy ending instead. Henry and Dr. Hopper were both brought to safety, neither of them too much the worse for wear.

Amy didn't find out about the mine incident until it had been safely resolved. Mr. Gold had been aware of the incident as it was happening, but he had kept it from her until he knew for sure that it had ended well and that everyone involved were all right. When he finally did tell her, he downplayed the episode as much as possible; but Amy was able to read between the lines and comprehended that Henry and Dr. Hopper had narrowly escaped a terrible fate. She was a little upset with Mr. Gold for not telling her about the occurrence until it was over, but she understood his reasons for doing so. If she had known that Henry was in such danger she would have been hysterical. Mr. Gold had only been thinking of her health and that of the baby. Knowing this, it was easy for her to let go of her initial resentment at having the news kept from her and forgive him.

The other events were much less dramatic, but still quite remarkable. They mainly had to do with the strange attraction between Mary Margaret Blanchard and the former John Doe, David Nolan. David was recovering, but he had almost total amnesia. He remembered nothing of his wife or marriage or his life before the coma. Though he returned to his home when he was ready to be discharged from the hospital, he remained quite enamored of the shy, pretty schoolteacher who had read to him during his coma, and who had been one of the people to find him by the river after he wandered away from the hospital. Naturally this didn't sit well with his wife or with Regina Mills, who seemed to consider it her prerogative to help him regain his memory and truly reunite him with Kathryn.

To her credit, Mary Margaret did everything she could to discourage David's attentions. She avoided him whenever possible, even quitting her volunteer work at Storybrooke General, which she had done as long as anyone could remember. But David was incredibly persistent, and since Mary Margaret was attracted to him as well it soon became harder and harder for him to turn him away. Just when it seemed that they would no longer be able to hide their feelings for one another, though, David regained his memory.

He had actually been at Mr. Gold's shop when his memories finally returned. Apparently he had glimpsed an old lawn ornament which he and Kathryn had put in their front yard as newlyweds, and it had triggered his buried memories. He had decided that he owed it to himself and to Kathryn to attempt to salvage their marriage, and had bid Mary Margaret farewell. Mary Margaret had then sought comfort in the arms of Dr. Whale, one of the physicians at Storybrooke General whom she had dated a time or two in the past, but the affair was short-lived.

Mr. Gold himself told Amy of David's miraculous epiphany in the pawnshop. Though he didn't say one way or the other, Amy got the sense he was disappointed that David had remembered and had decided to put duty before what his heart was telling him. She was a little let down herself, for she liked Mary Margaret and would have liked a happy ending for her. But she had to admire David Nolan's determination to do the right thing at the cost of his true feelings. That, she felt, was the mark of a real man. Then, too, if he and Mary Margaret _had_ begun a relationship it would have only fueled Henry's fantasy that they were Snow White and Prince Charming. Perhaps this real-world resolution to what he perceived as a fairy-tale situation would help him understand that his dream world was just that.

Emma Swan and Sheriff Graham were likewise battling a growing attraction to one another, but both were still in the denial stage. Even if Mr. Gold hadn't shared his theories about this with her, Amy would have seen it on her own. It was evident in the way Emma reacted whenever Graham's name came up, and vice versa. Once they had both dropped by to visit Amy at the same time, neither knowing that the other one was going to do so, and the heat between them had been palpable. She laughed about it with Mr. Gold later that night.

Although it was clear to Amy and Mr. Gold that Emma and Graham were fighting their feelings for one another—and losing—it never occurred to either of them how their own situation paralleled that of the sheriff and his deputy. Though they were no longer in denial about their own feelings, neither could yet fathom that the other might return them. If Amy had still been able to get out and about, all of Storybrooke would have known about their respective feelings. As it was, most of the town was still in the dark about it, though the rumors still flew. Only Ruby knew for certain that Amy was falling for Mr. Gold and him for her, and even Ashley had realized sparks were flying.

"There's so much sexual tension in that house it isn't funny," Ruby had told Ashley privately. "I almost wish they'd just go ahead and screw each other blind. It would ease things up a lot."

"You're such a perv, Ruby," Ashley had responded mildly. "You're right, though. They definitely want each other. I think it might even go deeper than that."

Ruby was amazed at Ashley's uncharacteristic insight. "Do you really?"

"Yeah," Ashley replied. "I don't want them to…you know…what you said. But it would be nice if they admitted their feelings to each other. It would be a good thing for both of them. Amy is so happy, and Mr. Gold is like a different person when he's with her. Wouldn't it be great if they finally figured it out? They could get together, and Amy could keep the baby. I bet Mr. Gold would raise it as his."

"Dream on, Ash," Ruby scoffed. Deep down, though, she agreed with her friend. It _would _be a wonderful thing if Amy and Mr. Gold realized they were meant to be with each other and decided to raise the baby together. Ruby knew it would never happen, though. If she had learned one thing in this life, it was that life never turned out like the movies. There were no fairy-tale endings. Even so, Ruby found herself hoping against hope that what Ashley had said would come to pass.

…

One morning about ten days before Christmas, Amy awoke to such an unusual sight she thought for a minute she was still dreaming. Mr. Gold, clad in his usual suit plus a black apron, came through the door of the master suite carrying a small blue spruce in his arms, roots still attached.

"Ho, ho, ho," he said when he saw that she was awake.

"Mr. Gold!" Amy exclaimed as she sat straight up in bed. "What on earth?"

"I thought you might like to have a Christmas tree," he said with a shrug. "The day _is _almost upon us, you know." He carried the tree to the large chest along one wall and placed it carefully into a small galvanized bucket that had magically appeared in the night.

"I know that," she said. "By the way, if any packages get delivered to your shop that you didn't order, don't open them. They're Christmas presents. I ordered them with the bank account you set up for me. One of the presents is yours; I don't know exactly when it will get here, so to be safe just bring everything here without opening it first. Ruby's going to bring me some wrapping supplies."

"I would have been happy to do that for you," he said as he finished whatever he was doing with the little tree—replanting it in the bucket, she supposed.

"I know. But you already do so much for me. Ruby said she didn't mind."

"Well, if you've been ordering presents you definitely need a tree to put them under," he told her, turning to smile at her. "I know it's small, but it's the best I could do on my own."

"It's perfect," Amy said truthfully. "Where did you find it?"

"In the woods. I went out at dawn looking for the perfect tree for this room. I've never had one in here before, but it occurred to me that this is where you spend virtually all of your time, and I thought we should brighten it up for the holidays. After Christmas I'll replant it right where I found it."

"That is so sweet of you," Amy said, touched. "You really didn't have to go to all this trouble, though. An artificial tree would have been just fine."

"Nonsense," he said with a wave of his hand. "Artificial trees just don't _feel _like Christmas. I wouldn't have one in my house."

"You decorate for Christmas?' Amy asked, trying to keep the incredulity out of her voice and not quite succeeding. Somehow it just didn't seem like him.

He laughed. "Of course I do. I don't go 'all out' as they say, but I at least put up a tree every year, and hang a wreath on the front door. Douglas fir, of course. Have to represent the old country. But seeing as this is your world for right now"—he gestured around the suite—"I thought we should haul out the holly in here as well. When I saw this little fellow, I knew he was the one, just what you'd choose yourself."

"He is," Amy laughed. "Are you going to decorate him for me?"

"Of course," he said. "What's a Christmas tree without tinsel and baubles and such? I have more than enough ornaments and other _accoutrements_ to bedeck Mr. Blue Spruce here. I even closed the shop for the day so I could stay home and deck the halls. A little bird told me that Christmas is your favorite holiday, and by God we are going to celebrate in style. We'll start by getting this joint dressed for the part."

And they did. After a breakfast of hot chocolate, fruit salad, and cinnamon rolls, Mr. Gold went to work on the small tree. She had figured he would do it in red and gold to match the rest of the room, but to her delight he had bought all blue decorations. "The big tree in the library is red and gold," he explained when she mentioned as much. "I thought you would like something more to your own taste in here."

She was touched that he had thought of putting a Christmas tree in her room in the first place, and she would have been happy with any color scheme he had come up with. She would have been thrilled with an artificial tree and ornaments from the dollar store; this had been the norm in her previous Christmases at home.

Her father would have ignored the holiday completely had it been up to him, but every year Amy had resolutely hauled out the mothbally fake tree with the cheap ornaments they had had all her life. He would always rise to the occasion enough to put some gifts under the tree once it was up and decorated. Even though most of the presents had tended towards the impersonal—gift cards, bath sets, the occasional article of clothing—she had appreciated his effort. Every year she had hoped that this would be the year they actually celebrated Christmas as a family, but every year she had been disappointed. Invariably, she opened her presents alone Christmas morning while he watched TV in the den. He would open his own presents from her in there, and they would thank one another perfunctorily before she left to have Christmas dinner with Ruby and her grandmother. Even as a small child Amy had known it was a poor excuse for a Christmas, but it was all she had.

She'd never told Mr. Gold about these earlier Christmases, but knowing what he knew of her life with her father he could imagine them easily enough. He had determined to give her the best Christmas of her life thus far, and seeing her laughter and smiles he knew he was well on the way to succeeding. After breakfast he put an album of carols on the stereo, and he decorated the tree with her input. Once the tree was fully decorated he had turned on the lights (blue, of course), and they sat admiring his handiwork and listening to the festive music. Amy even sang along to the ones she knew, which was most of them: "O Come, All Ye Faithful", "Silent Night", "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day". After her particularly lovely rendition of "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear", Mr. Gold informed her gravely that if she ever had the chance to further her education, she should definitely study music in addition to anything else she decided to pursue.

Only one small blip marred their lovely day. As they were eating their breakfast, Amy realized that Mr. Gold was troubled about something. Being Mr. Gold, he didn't come right out with it, or obviously show that anything was amiss; rather, he was a bit _too _cheerful, _too _talkative. It was a credit to Amy's intelligence that she saw this almost immediately, and a testament to their growing friendship that she called him on it.

"What's wrong?" she asked him point-blank once he finally came to a stopping place in his cheerful patter about Scottish Christmas traditions.

He feigned ignorance. "Why, whatever do you mean, dear?"

She wasn't buying it. "You're upset about something," she declared. "I want to know what it is."

He looked into her eyes and saw the implacability there. She wouldn't rest until she found out what was troubling him. Sighing, he decided his best course of action was to tell her the truth.

"This morning," he began, "when I was in the woods, I ran into Sheriff Graham."

That wasn't the answer she had been expecting, and her brow furrowed a little. She sat silently, waiting for him to go on.

"He was…" he paused, searching for the right words, "most distressed. It seemed he had been chasing a wolf through the forest."

"A wolf?' Amy echoed. "But there aren't any wolves in this area."

"No, there aren't," Mr. Gold confirmed. "If there _had _been a wolf, I would have seen it anyway. I tried to tell him as much. But he was adamant. He was in such an agitated state, I decided it was best to humor him."

"What happened then?" Amy breathed.

"Nothing, really," he said calmly, though his dark eyes were still troubled. "He babbled a bit about some sort of dream he had last night. I was still trying to calm him, so I told him that some say dreams are actually memories of our previous lives. That only seemed to agitate him further, though it wasn't my intention of course. I kept hoping he would come to his senses, but he was…well, he was almost like a madman. I was getting ready to invite him here," he admitted. "He was upset, but I didn't believe he was dangerous in any way. I planned to try to get him to calm down, call Deputy Swan to fetch him. Before I could encourage him to come to the house for some coffee and breakfast, though, he took off again."

"Dear God," Amy said finally. "It almost sounds as though…" She couldn't continue.

He finished her thought for her. "As though he had lost his mind," he said. "I know. I confess, that was my first thought. As soon as I made it back to the house, I called the station. Deputy Swan answered. She didn't seem too pleased to hear from me, but I managed to find out that Graham had made it to the station and was proceeding with his shift as usual. I think he'll be all right," he concluded. "I flipped through some of the psychology books in the library. Apparently, such behavior isn't all that unusual after a particularly vivid nightmare. I'm fairly certain now that's all it was…a nightmare. At some point between the woods and the station, he must have come to his senses and realized he same thing."

Amy couldn't suppress a shudder. "I hope you're right," she said. "Poor Graham. Poor you, to come across him in that kind of state. I know it must have scared the bejeezus out of you."

"Yes," he said honestly. "After I researched it a bit, though, I understood. At any rate, he seems to be doing all right now. Try not to worry about it, dear. I'm sure it was nothing to be concerned about."

Because she knew it was what he wanted, she dropped the subject. Still, throughout the day it remained in the back of her mind. When Mr. Gold left the room to get them some lunch, she even called Emma and asked her straight out if Graham was OK.

Emma didn't seem as surprised about two people calling to inquire about Graham as Amy thought she should. Yes, she admitted warily, he had seemed a little off when he came in that morning. But he had recovered quickly and was out doing his patrol now. Amy sensed she was holding back, but she had to be content with the information.

If Amy had been anyone but Mr. Gold's ex-housekeeper and current housemate, Emma would have confided in her. She would have told her about Graham's bizarre behavior the night before: how he had nearly hit her with a dart, how he had followed her into the street to explain himself (not just for almost nailing her with the dart, but about his relationship with Regina), how he had suddenly forced her into a passionate kiss, the feelings said kiss had awakened in her. But knowing Amy's closeness to Mr. Gold, the newly minted deputy of Storybrooke thought it best to keep these things to herself. Though she liked Amy and trusted her as much as she did anyone (which admittedly wasn't much) she didn't want to take any chances on the girl telling the pawnbroker that Graham's peculiar behavior had started earlier than he knew.

Even though Amy knew Emma wasn't telling her the whole story, she was reassured by the brief conversation. By the time Mr. Gold came back in with their lunch, she had decided to roll with his explanation that Graham had suffered a bout of post-nightmare psychosis, and was over it now. As the day spun on, she was almost able to forget about it entirely.

But only almost.

…

At first, Amy had no idea what had jerked her out of her deep sleep. Still caught in the state between dreaming and waking, she thought for a moment it had been her alarm clock. For a second she thought she had overslept and was going to be late for school. When she remembered she had graduated the year before, she thought she had to get up to fix Mr. Gold's breakfast. She had actually turned on the lamp and was searching for her robe when she caught a glimpse of the clock: 3 A.M.

Total recall came back to her then. She was pregnant; she wasn't officially employed by Mr. Gold anymore. She wasn't even supposed to get out of bed. As if agreeing with her, the baby kicked. "Get back in bed!" Amy fancied she was saying.

She did, but she was wide awake now. What had woken her, she wondered. Could she be going into preterm labor again? No, she realized almost immediately. She felt fine, no cramps or anything. So what had jarred her out of her slumber?

As if in answer to her question, the old-fashioned rotary phone on the bedside table jangled again.

She reached for it, but the ringing was abruptly silenced. Mr. Gold must have answered it, she realized. The realization comforted her not a bit. "A ringing phone after midnight is never good news," she remembered Granny saying once.

Granny. That had to be what it was, Amy thought. The old woman had been in poor health for the past few years. She must have suffered another heart attack. Amy recalled Dr. Whale saying at the time of her heart attack that the next one would likely be fatal. Oh God, no.

Amy had commenced grieving for her best friend's grandmother when a knock sounded at the door. "Come in," she managed to call.

Mr. Gold entered the room. He was wearing a pair of burgundy silk pajamas with a large gold G embroidered on the breast. As always, he carried his cane, which managed to look like an accessory rather than a necessity, even with pajamas. From the neck down, he looked every bit as elegant and impeccable as she was used to seeing him.

From the neck up, however, was a different story. His long brown hair was still mussed with sleep, but looking into his eyes she saw that he was also wide awake. His face was ashen.

"Amy, dear," he said, a trifle shakily. "I was going to wait until morning to tell you, but I saw that your light was on. The phone must have wakened you. I'm afraid I have some bad news."

There was no worse sentence in the English language, Amy decided; it even beat out "Put your feet in the stirrups and slide down to the end of the table."

"It's Granny, isn't it?" she wailed.

Confusion flashed briefly across his face before being replaced by comprehension. "Mrs. Woods?" he asked. "Oh, no. Mrs. Woods is fine, as far as I know. It's Graham, dear. Graham passed away last night."

The words didn't compute right away. "Graham?" Amy asked stupidly.

"Sheriff Graham," he said, more emotion in his voice than she had ever heard before. "He's gone, Amy."

Gone? What did he mean, gone? Had he left town? Of course not, no one ever left Storybrooke. What the hell was Mr. Gold trying to say?

Mr. Gold swallowed hard before continuing. "Sheriff Graham…collapsed at the station late last night. Miss Swan was with him; she called the paramedics immediately, but it was too late. They think it was his heart."

Finally she realized what he was telling her. "Sheriff Graham is dead?" she whispered.

He nodded, a genuine expression of sorrow on his face. "I'm afraid so."

As the words sank in, she let out one long, agonized, piercing cry. In a flash Mr. Gold was by her side, holding her tightly. "It was very quick," he said in a vain effort to comfort her. "He probably never knew what hit him. Amy, dear, please don't get yourself too worked up. You know Graham wouldn't want you to endanger yourself or your baby. It was fast, darling. Fast, probably painless, and he died in Miss Swan's arms. Think about it, dear; could there be a better way to go? Quickly, no suffering, and in the arms of the person you love…we should all be so lucky."

The words did no good. Amy continued to sob against his shoulder, her tears soaking his pajama top. Gold felt a bit like crying himself, though of course he didn't. He had liked and respected the young sheriff, though he hadn't been above uttering a veiled threat to the man now and then when circumstances warranted. Still, he had never wished any harm upon the man. That he had died now, just as he seemed within arm's reach of true happiness, seemed most unfair. Gold didn't truly believe that the young man's death had been quick or painless, either. From what he had gathered, it had been anything but. However, he _had_ died in Miss Swan's arms, and there was something to be said for that. At least the young man hadn't died alone. He hadn't died unloved. Gold understood this, and he knew Amy would too, once she had calmed down.

He knew, too, that Graham would never have wanted Amy to be so distraught at his death, especially in her delicate condition. It was this knowledge that helped the pawnbroker get a hold of himself. "Amy, dear," he said firmly, even as he rocked her back and forth, "you absolutely _must _calm down. I know this is very upsetting. The death of a young, seemingly healthy person…it's inexplicable. It's against all of nature's rules. But letting yourself become hysterical now won't help Graham. It's too late; he's gone. You have to think of the baby now. You know he would want you to put the baby first."

This approach did the trick. Slowly, slowly, Amy's sobs quieted. She remained limp in his arms, her tears still flowing but no longer on the verge of hysteria. "Poor Graham," she was finally able to whisper, "poor Graham."

"I know, I know," Gold crooned, continuing to rock. "It's very sad. All the more reason you must remain strong, dear girl. If you're this upset, imagine how poor Miss Swan must be feeling. She thinks of you as a friend, you know. She's going to need your help in the days to come."

It was the best thing he could possibly have said, and it was also the truth. Although his main concern was the well-being of Amy and the child within her, he actually _was _quite concerned about Emma Swan. Emma really did think of Amy as a friend, he knew. She would need someone to lean on after this terrible tragedy. But, he also knew, she would never allow Amy to grieve so much she risked her own health. As he saw it, there was a way for some good to come of this awful situation. Amy would put her sadness aside to be strong and supportive for Emma, and Emma would do the same for Amy. It would be good for both of them.

"Try to sleep now, dear," he urged as Amy's tears finally came to a stop. "I'm going to try to do the same. I'll keep the shop closed today, too; it's only respectful, don't you think? I'll need to go to Graham's apartment at some point during the day. I own the building he lived in, you know. I was his landlord. I'm going to gather some of his personal belongings and see if Miss Swan might want them. I think she'll appreciate that, don't you? But I won't leave until I know you're all right."

He shifted to rise, but to his astonishment Amy clung to him. "Don't go," she said pleadingly. "Stay with me."

He didn't hesitate. Part of him had hoped she would ask him to do so. "Of course," he said soothingly. Any other time he would have been hesitant at the very least, or refused outright. Sharing the same bed was a potential minefield. There were too many bad situations it could lead to. The impromptu slumber party of a few weeks before had been a different state of affairs. He had remained fully clothed and on top of the covers, she had been under them, and contact had been minimal. But under ordinary circumstances he would never have risked actually sleeping under the covers with her, both of them in nightclothes. The possibilities for awkwardness and outright disaster were endless.

These weren't ordinary circumstances, however. This was a time of sadness. The same rules didn't apply. He knew she merely wanted the comfort of another human being close by, and truth be told, he wanted the same. The news of the sheriff's death had hit him harder than he would have expected. In his own way, he realized with no small surprise, he was grieving.

So it was that he felt only a little trepidation sliding into the bed when Amy slid over. He lay flat on his back, wondering if the would simply lie side-by-side all night like two sticks of wood, or if she would continue to hold onto him for dear life. He hoped for the latter but knew it might not be such a good idea. Although sex was the very last thing on his mind at the moment, that didn't mean his body wouldn't have other ideas. Not that he would ever act upon it, but it would still be incredibly awkward, especially if she noticed.

As he pondered this Amy shifted until her head once again rested on his shoulder. Of its own volition his arm moved to wrap around her. His hand rested on the mound of her belly. He felt the baby stirring within, and began to relax. This would be all right, after all. Even if he did experience an unwanted…physical accident, the way they were laying she wouldn't know. And he didn't think it would happen anyway; at any other time, almost certainly, but not right now.

As he drifted off the thought crossed his mind that this was far more comfortable than he would have imagined. It was more than comfortable; it was _right, _somehow. Though he knew better, he couldn't shake the thought that they had lain this way many, many times before. Even the movement of the baby under his hand was familiar. Though he had always been a cold realist, he had to admit to himself that perhaps three really were more things in Heaven and Earth than were dreamt of in his philosophy. The events of the past few months had really driven this home to him. Why had he felt as if he knew Emma Swan from the first moment he had met her at Granny's Inn? And why was he increasingly certain that he had not only known Amy Miller before, but had loved her…and was beginning to think, judging on the hazy recollections, that she had returned the feeling?

Before he could think more deeply on this, though, sleep finally overtook him.

…

Several miles away, in a house nowhere near as grand as Mr. Gold's estate but still more luxurious than anyone else in Storybrooke could ever aspire to, Regina Mills awoke from her own fitful slumber.

She finally gave up any hope of sleep and rose from the bed. It felt so cold and empty without Graham. True, he hadn't slept here every night, but she could always count on his presence in her bed a couple of times a week, at least. Even on the nights he hadn't been beside her, his scent on the sheets and pillow had been a comforting reminder.

She finally allowed herself the cold comfort of tears as she remembered once more that Graham would never again share this bed with her. Though his scent still lingered, she knew it was only a matter of time before that, too, faded. Then he would truly be gone from her life forever.

And she had done it herself.

_I had no choice, _she reminded herself as she pressed her forehead against the cold glass of the bedroom window. Though it had nearly killed her to do so, she knew she had made the right decision. He had been remembering. He had turned against her. Worst of all, he had aligned himself with that Swan bitch. Had she allowed him to live, he would have been nothing but a threat, a danger. She really had had no choice.

Her eyes narrowed as she willed the useless tears to stop flowing. This was all Emma Swan's fault. None of this would ever have happened if that bitch hadn't come to town. The woman seemed intent on taking everything Regina called her own; first her son, now her lover…who knew what she would go after next?

She had to be stopped. Regina knew this for sure. The only question was _how_? So far, the woman had thwarted every one of Regina's schemes to drive her from town. Regina supposed it was time to step things up now. She hadn't wanted to hurt the woman. Driving her from town would have been good enough. The woman was Henry's biological mother, after all; though Regina had no intention of allowing her to be any part of her son's life, she was after all the reason Regina _had _a son. She did care about Henry. She had never been able to love him as a mother should, but she _did_ care deeply about him. Now that Graham was gone, Henry was the only thing left she did care about. If she could have avoided it, she would not have harmed the woman who had given birth to him.

But the woman had given her no choice. Just as Graham had given her no choice. It wasn't going to be as easy to get rid of Emma Swan, however. It wasn't simply a matter of squeezing her heart to dust as she had done with Graham. No, she would have to deal with this in the way of this world. Perhaps she would arrange an accident.

Taking Emma Swan out of the picture permanently would have to wait, though. For one thing, it was too soon. If the sheriff and the deputy died mysteriously too close together, even the dimmest bulbs in the town would start asking questions. Anyway, there were other fish to fry at the moment.

Someone else was beginning to remember. This had happened a few times over the past 28 years, but until now it had always been fairly easily resolved. Usually it was a matter of a simple spell, like the one she had used on the tacky windmill that had caused David Nolan to "regain his memory". Had Graham not remembered so much so quickly, she would have been able to perform a similar spell on him. Alas, by the time she had realized the extent of his memories he had already remembered she was not to be trusted.

She wondered who was beginning to remember this time. That was one of the loopholes of the curse Rumpelstiltskin hadn't bothered to warn her about: she would sense when someone's memory was returning, but she wouldn't sense exactly who it was. She would have to wait for them to give themselves away—and hope that they did so early enough for her to do damage control. It had been one of the Imp's ways to keep things interesting in the new world.

She smirked. Well, the joke had been on him, hadn't it? He was just as much in the dark as the rest of them. Except for the matter of the word "please"—he had managed to retain that if nothing else, and had certainly used it to his advantage enough. Sometimes she almost wished she had allowed him to keep his memories; his counsel at times like this would have been most helpful.

Rumpelstiltskin…could it be he? Was he the one who was remembering? She hoped not. "Mr. Gold" was far cleverer than the vast majority of the town, an aspect of his true self she had allowed him to keep. If anyone could keep their returning memories a secret until it was far too late for her to intervene, it was he.

However, she didn't believe he would do so. She had kept her end of their bargain. He lived in wealth and comfort. His estate was far larger and grander than even her own. He was the only other person in town with as much wealth and power as she. She had allowed him to pursue his own interests without interference from her, so long as they were not at cross purposes with her own plans. Besides Regina herself, the man currently known as Mr. Gold was the only victim of the curse who had actually come out ahead.

If it was indeed the man-turned-Imp-turned-man who was remembering, she was still safe for the time being. But there was no way to know for sure. Worse still, her sense of returning memories was stronger than it had ever been before. Did that mean someone else was remembering as quickly and clearly as Graham had? Or—worst of all—could more than one person be remembering?

Regina felt as if all control was slipping away from her. Seemingly overnight, her happy ending had turned to ashes. She had conveniently forgotten that her own son was afraid of her, that her lover was her lover only because she held him in thrall, and that her townspeople disliked and distrusted her. In her mind now, everything had been perfect until Emma Swan had arrived in town.

And everything would be perfect again, she vowed to herself. She would find out who was regaining their memories, and she would take care of them. If it meant dealing with them the same way she had dealt with Graham, well, she had no qualms about that. If she could crush the heart of her lover, she could certainly do so to some lesser townsperson. And then, she would exact her vengeance on Miss Emma Swan.

Yes, she would have her happy ending back…no matter how many she had to destroy in the process.

**Aaargh…it was the Chapter that Would Not Die! I couldn't seem to wrap it up and didn't want to split it again. At last I got to Graham's death, which is where I had already decided to end the chapter, and I was like "Finally!" Then out of nowhere Regina decided to bogart the story for a few pages. Figured I'd better let her, since she _is _the Evil Queen after all. No telling what she'd do to me if I refused her.**

**I've got Chapter 9 pretty much written out in my head, but I still have to transfer it to paper. Obviously most of my time has been taken up with the ever-lengthening Chapter 8. By the way, I decided I am going to keep the story at M. It seems that further sexytime is not as far away as I originally thought. Don't you just hate it when the characters start taking over the story? At least they were nice enough to solve the mystery for me of exactly what Mr. Gold was up to in the forest that morning. Obviously the show will have a different explanation, but I rather like mine. (Although show-wise I'm still clinging to the hope that Mr. Gold was actually burying Graham's real heart after swapping it out with an animal heart. If he's retained his magic as well as his memories, it would be easy for him to enchant an animal heart in order to fool Regina, place Graham under some Sleeping Beauty-type spell, and spirit him away somewhere to recover. I've thought a lot about this, can you tell?)**

**Once again, only the OCs are mine. Everything and everyone else belongs to ABC, Disney, the Brothers Grimm, etc. By the way, there's a tiny clue in this chapter that reveals a little about Amy's father, and why he treats her the way he does. This came as a surprise to me, but I was glad for it. I knew he was more than a one-dimensional baddie, but I didn't know exactly what his motivations were. Now I do. Cookies to anyone who figures it out!**

**In the immortal words of Eric Cartman (actually the parallel-universe Eric Cartman with the goatee) "Ah love you gahs". **


	9. Chapter 9

**Another long one, but I have a feeling most of you will be very pleased with this chapter. It got off to a slow start, but as I got into the, shall we say, "nitty-gritty" it came much easier. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.**

CHAPTER 9

Graham's memorial service was held a little more than a week after his death. He had been buried in a private graveside service the day after his body had been autopsied and released by the coroner. Mr. Gold had taken care of the arrangements. Somehow, he had felt that Graham wouldn't want the Mayor, who had controlled him in life, to be in charge of his final exit. So it had been the pawnbroker who chose his casket, a simple but dignified mahogany affair. It had been Mr. Gold who paid for his final resting place in the town's lone cemetery, and ordered the headstone. Like the casket, the stone was simple but dignified, a marble obelisk containing only the man's name and dates of birth and death.

Mayor Mills had been most displeased when she discovered that Mr. Gold had already handled the Sheriff's final arrangements, but by the time she found out there had been nothing she could do. Gold didn't care one way or the other. Indeed, he took a perverse joy in the mayor's outrage, and believed that Graham would have done the same. He had just been beginning to emerge from under her thumb when his life was cut so brutally short. Gold regretted deeply that the young sheriff had been struck down before he fully realized his own strength. Who knew what he could have done for the town to loosen it from the mayor's grasp? Well, there was still Miss Swan.

As a way to deal with her own not-inconsiderable grief, as well as to ease her smarting ego, Mayor Mills had arranged the public memorial service. Gold allowed her to proceed with this without interference. He did so not for her, but for the rest of the town. Storybrooke deserved the chance to say farewell to one of their own.

So it was that the day after Christmas, the entire town gathered in the auditorium of the high school to say goodbye to the sheriff. A large picture of Graham rested on an easel on the stage; the Mayor had already declared it would be hung in the lobby of City Hall after the service. There were few flowers. Most people had chosen instead to donate to the animal shelter, knowing Graham had enjoyed volunteering there in his spare time. However, a few people had sent floral tributes as well. Mary Margaret Blanchard had sent a tall white wicker basket of old-fashioned red climbing roses. Dr. Hopper had bought a giant peace lily, Marco a large arrangement of daisies. Gold himself had given Amy his credit card and told her to order something for the both of them. He hadn't been too surprised when he saw the large spray of blue delphinium and yellow daffodils she had chosen. Blue and gold…it was most appropriate, and very like her. The floral arrangements looked lovely grouped around Graham's picture.

Amy…he turned to look at her, sitting by his side here in the back row of the auditorium. He couldn't help thinking she looked especially lovely today, herself. She wore a simple navy-blue knit maternity dress, the only dress she had bought when he had told her to choose a maternity wardrobe. Though it was plain to the point of severity, she was most fetching in it, at least to his eyes. A simple strand of pearls caressed her throat, and matching pearl studs shone in her ears. He had given her the jewelry himself, telling her it had come from his shop, which it had. Knowing she wouldn't accept the pearls if he just gave them to her, he had presented them to her as a Christmas gift. She had protested a bit—"You've done so much for me, Mr. Gold. You didn't have to give me a Christmas present"—but in the end she had accepted them with gratitude. Her inky hair was swept up in a French twist. She had even put on a touch of makeup for the occasion, mascara that brought out her pretty gray-blue eyes and a rose-colored lipstick. Amy today wore a dignity about her that he had never seen before, which sat upon her well. She cried quietly during the eulogy, but there was no hysterical outpouring of grief today. Doc had only agreed she could attend the memorial service if she promised not to let her emotions get out of hand, and if she returned home as soon as the service ended. So far, she was holding up her end of the deal admirably.

He wore his customary black suit with a royal-blue shirt and her own Christmas presents to him—a blue paisley-print Hermes tie and matching pocket square. He had been surprised and touched when she presented the gifts to him yesterday morning, though he had chastised her a bit for spending so much money on him. "Don't start," she had told him. "You've done so much for me these past few months, I wanted to get you the best gift I could. I'm only sorry it isn't more." He had assured her, entirely truthfully, that the fact she had gotten him a present at all was more than enough present for him. And he was truly pleased with her choice. If he had had the past several months to learn about her and her likes and tastes, she had had those same months to learn about his as well.

He had chosen these seats in the back row so they would be able to leave as soon as the service concluded, per Dr. Dockery's orders. He had also chosen them to be as inconspicuous as possible. The auditorium had begun buzzing at their appearance; the whispers had begun the minute they entered the auditorium arm in arm. Every head in the place had turned to watch him lead her to a seat, take her coat as she sat down, and take his seat beside her. Her obvious ease with him had only added fuel to the fire. He knew they would once again be the talk of Storybrooke after this rare public appearance. He couldn't do anything about the talk, but he could at least limit her exposure to it. In the back row, no one would be able to turn in their seat and stare openly at the two of them, not without being horribly rude.

A few brave souls actually came up to speak to them. Mrs. Woods, Ruby, and Ashley naturally came first. He thought to himself that he had never seen Ruby wearing more clothes or less makeup. Unlike most young women who resorted to such attention-getting fashion choices, she was actually far more beautiful without the paint and revealing clothes. They had spoken warmly to Amy and politely to him, which he considered an improvement over their former disdain and outright fear.

After Amy's best friends broke the taboo, so to speak, others followed. Mary Margaret Blanchard and Emma Swan were the next to approach. Amy held out her arms to Emma, and the blonde went into them wordlessly. They held onto each other for a brief moment. When they finally parted, both had tears in their eyes.

"If you need anything, anything at all…"Amy said to Emma. "Even if you just need to talk, you know where to find me." It was the sort of thing everyone said at such a time, but everyone in the small group knew that Amy truly meant it.

"Thanks," Emma said, swiping quickly at her eyes. "I might just take you up on that. MM's been a huge help"—she smiled at her roommate—"but I know I'm wearing her out. Some fresh ears would do us both good."

"Well, my ears are always open," Amy informed her. She turned to the attractive young schoolteacher. "Miss Blanchard, it's so good to see you."

Mary Margaret enfolded her in another hug. "Amy, please," she said with a small laugh. "I'm not your teacher anymore. You're a grown woman now, for Pete's sake. I think you can call me Mary Margaret."

Emma's brow furrowed a bit. The action escaped everyone except, of course, Mr. Gold. He knew what she was thinking: how could Mary Margaret, who was twenty-five at the most, have been Amy's fourth-grade teacher a decade earlier? When the young deputy saw him looking at her, she frowned a bit and looked away.

Had they been in a different setting, Gold might have told her that there were a lot of things about Storybrooke, Maine that didn't quite add up. She had no doubt realized this during her time here, but she had only lived here for a couple of months. She couldn't know just how off Storybrooke was. For a long time, Gold himself hadn't realized the extent of the strangeness in the town. Certainly he had perceived the small oddities here and there: how none of the permanent residents ever seemed to move away, how vague everyone's memories of their pasts were. But somehow it had never seemed all that important to him, occupied as he was by his own dealings.

Since Graham's death, though, he had thought much more about the peculiarities of the small town, and had even comprehended some which had escaped him before. No one seemed to age in Storybrooke, he had realized. Mrs. Woods hadn't aged a day in…all the years he had known her. Mayor Mills had been the mayor for as long as he could remember, even though she was only in her early thirties. He had been in Storybrooke for well over twenty years; he should have been able to remember the mayor as a teenager, and Mrs. Woods as a middle-aged woman. For that matter, he should have been able to remember himself as a young man, for he would have been so when he arrived in the town. Never interested in the past before, Gold now found himself constantly trying to remember it. And always there was the same result: he could remember roughly the past ten years with relative clarity, but the rest…it was as though a swirling mist fogged his brain every time he tried to think back any further. There were flashes here and there, like his memories of Amy's parents, but that was all.

It disturbed him, and he was not a man who was easily disturbed. He felt as though he was trying to solve a large, complicated jigsaw puzzle, but too many of the pieces were missing. When he did happen across another piece, it only made the puzzle as a whole more complex and impossible to solve. This new piece of the puzzle—discovering Mary Margaret Blanchard had been Amy's fourth-grade teacher, though she couldn't be any more than five or six years older than the nineteen-year-old—was no exception.

Add to this the other memories that flickered randomly through his mind—the ones he thought of as "sense-memories," such as the déjà vu he experienced whenever he held Amy in his arms or stroked her hair—and Gold found himself a most confused man. The myriad strangenesses of Storybrooke might be like a jigsaw puzzle, but the other memories…of a past life?…gave him the sense of pulling on a locked door. The door had been firmly barred at first, but bit by bit it was starting to give way. What could be waiting on the other side?

He had not discussed any of this with Amy. He believed she would understand, but he felt, somehow, that to enlighten her could put her in harm's way. He found it odd that she had never appeared to notice any of this, or at least hadn't mentioned it if she had. Had it never occurred to her that a girl with her near-eidetic abilities should remember far more of her life than the past few years of it? Had she never noticed the inconsistencies in ages, the hazy collective memories of the townspeople, the fact that no one ever left?

She had mentioned to him earlier, as they were leaving for the service, that she had never been to a funeral before. He had thought then that there was something wrong with the statement, but now it hit him. _Mr. Boyd. _She hadn't attended the funeral of the father of one of her best friends? She would have been in middle school at the time, certainly old enough to attend a funeral. He remembered now her trip down memory lane on Thanksgiving night; she had only spoken of Ashley's father in passing. When she did speak of him, she had been quite matter-of-fact. "Ashley's father was already dead by then," she had said as an aside during one of her stories. That didn't fit at all with the rest of what he knew about her. Amy Miller cried over sad books. He had seen her weep over a Hallmark commercial. Surely the thought of her best friend's late father should have provoked a few fond reminiscences at the very least. It was almost as if the memories were so painful she had buried them deeply…or as if she had never really known the man at all. Same thing with the baby's father. She spoke of the young man who had called himself Todd Prince as if she had known him many years before, instead of only a few months, and there was little feeling in her recollections.

It was very strange, indeed, that Amy had never noticed any of these things. But he wasn't going to point them out to her, at least not for the time being. At best, it would confuse her. At worst, it would upset her, and after the preterm labor scare he was definitely not going to cause her any undue emotional distress. And though he couldn't put his finger on it, he had a strong feeling that if Amy were to realize just how rotten things were in Denmark, she would be in grave danger.

So he put the thoughts from his mind as best he could. This really wasn't the time. Today was about saying goodbye to the Sheriff. (Although there was something suspicious there, too, he thought; a vigorously healthy young man dying of 'natural causes'? Gold wasn't sure if Graham's death had anything to do with the mystery of Storybrooke, but he suspected as much.)

During his ponderings, young Henry Mills had joined Emma and Mary Margaret. Gold glanced towards the front of the auditorium and wasn't surprised to see Mayor Mills, looking quite regal in a black suit and small pillbox hat with a veil, glaring at their small group. He allowed a small smile to cross his lips and raised one eyebrow at her sardonically. She flushed and made a show of turning to face forward once again.

Gold turned his attention to the conversation that was going on between the Mayor's son and Amy. "How are things going with…you know?" Amy asked the boy. Gold's interest was raised.

It was piqued even further when Henry replied, dejectedly, "We're kind of on a break from that right now."

Amy nodded, seeming to understand. Lowering her voice, she said "Did you ever figure out what we talked about that day?"

The boy leaned in closer, a spark of excitement momentarily lighting up his glum face. "Not yet," he whispered. "I found something interesting, though. Some of the pages are missing from the book. I never noticed it before. Whoever took them out did a really good job, like with an X-Acto knife or something. I think maybe you were in those pages"—he glanced at Mr. Gold—"maybe him too."

Gold was officially intrigued and more than a little mystified. He hid it well, however; he knew instinctively that whatever Henry was talking about was meant for Amy's ears only. So he purposely didn't look in their direction, gazing instead around the auditorium. He acted as though he hadn't heard a single word of the whispered conversation.

"Henry," Emma said presently, "Regina's staring at us again. You'd better get back up there before she does the Darth Vader force-choke on one of us."

Out of the corner of his eye Gold observed the look Henry gave his birth mother at the offhand remark; it looked as if the boy truly believed his adoptive mother would attempt such a thing. He might not be too far off at that, the pawnbroker mused. After a hasty farewell he scampered away to rejoin his mother in the front row.

"I take it he's finally starting to realize the truth about the fairy-tale thing?" Amy murmured to Emma once Henry had gone. Gold was listening closer than ever now, while appearing to not be listening at all; a skill of his which had come in handy more times than he could count.

"Maybe," Emma whispered. "I don't know. He wants to give up on Operation Cobra for right now, but I don't think it's because he's starting to outgrow it. He says it's too dangerous. I haven't been able to get him to talk about it much, but I'm pretty sure he believes Regina had something to do with…what happened."

Amy winced. "And he's scared that she'll go after you next," she finished the blonde's unspoken thought. "Poor little guy."

"I know," Emma said quietly. "I wish he'd open up to me, so I could at least try to convince him that it was…nothing to do with her. I'm thinking of talking to Dr. Hopper about it. Maybe he can convince him that it was just one of those things."

Amy nodded. "I hope so," she replied. "I wanted him to realize the truth, of course. But not like this."

"No," Emma said sadly, "not like this."

"What was that all about?" Mr. Gold whispered once Emma and Mary Margaret had returned to their seats.

Amy had realized the entire time that he had been listening. He could fool everyone else with his elaborate show of disinterest, but she knew better. The more he seemed not to be paying attention, the closer he was actually doing so. "Tell you later," she whispered back.

Marco, the kindly town handyman, came up to say hello then. For once his best friend Dr. Hopper wasn't with him. Dr. Hopper, it transpired, was backstage doing a final run-through of the eulogy he had prepared for Graham. Amy and Mr. Gold were both pleased that Dr. Hopper, rather than the mayor, would perform the eulogy. From there their thoughts diverged. Mr. Gold was thinking that Marco, as well, hadn't aged a day in all the years since he'd come to Storybrooke. Amy was thinking how much she had always liked the elderly man. It was well known in town that Marco loved children, and had never been able to have any. Even if she hadn't known this previously, Amy would have been able to guess this easily from his actions. His sad face had brightened at the sight of her pregnant belly. As he often did when he was emotional, the handyman had lapsed into his native Italian. Amy only understood a handful of the words—_bella, carissima, _and _bambina_—but from those few phrases and his wide smile, she pretty well got the gist of what he was saying. She thought fleetingly that if only Marco was a few decades younger and his wife was still living, she would want him to adopt her baby. Her daughter would undoubtedly have been cherished growing up in that home. Alas, that wasn't possible. But she would find the right family for her child. She made a mental note to ask Mr. Gold again later about his progress with the prospective couples.

As Marco left them the music began. Rather than the funereal organ music she'd been expecting, the piped-in music was a string arrangement, light and lovely. The music played long enough for everyone to find their seats. The auditorium was packed; Graham had had a good turnout. Amy was obscurely pleased by this.

She was pleased, too, with Dr. Hopper's eulogy. Though he hadn't known the sheriff well, the psychiatrist had managed to put together a moving tribute. He spoke of Graham's unfailing kindness, his loyalty to the town of Storybrooke and its citizens, his dedication to his job. He brought up Graham's love of animals and the countless hours he'd spent volunteering at the animal shelter. "'The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good'," Dr. Hopper quoted. "In his short time on this earth, Sheriff Graham proved himself to be a mountain of a man."

Amy thought this was beautiful and eloquent. Gold, however, had to resist the urge to squirm in his seat. He had no quibble with the sentiment or its application towards the late sheriff; but it hit a nerve. Had he ever once gone out of his way to help someone without thinking about how it would benefit him in the long run? Had he ever given anyone aid or succor without strings attached?

_Yes, _came the surprising answer. _You used to be the sort of man who would give the shirt off his back without expecting anything in return, even gratitude. But you learned the error of your ways eventually. _

It was one of those brief, teasing flashes that had come to him more and more in the past few weeks. Instinctively he knew it to be true, but when he cast about in his mind, he could find no correlating memory. Oh, it was frustrating. He had racked his brain for hours on end, trying to recall the past he had previously shut out; but it simply would not come. He was even thinking of speaking to Dr. Hopper about the matter; perhaps the psychiatrist could help him unlock the secrets of his own mind, or at least recommend a good hypnotherapist. If anyone had suggested to Gold six months ago that he would be considering such drastic solutions, he would have thought them insane.

After concluding the eulogy, Dr. Hopper announced that there would be a reception immediately following at Granny's Diner. Amy would have liked to go, but she knew better than to mention it. Mr. Gold originally hadn't even wanted her to come to the service; it had only been after much pleading on her part that he had consulted Dr. Dockery and gotten the OB-GYN's blessing. And Doc had been very clear that she was to attend the service only, and return to home and bed immediately after. Attending the reception was out of the question.

The very instant the "moment of silence" that concluded the memorial service came to an end, she felt Mr. Gold's hand on her arm. "Come, dear," he whispered, "let's get out to the parking lot before the crowd disperses." Obediently she stood, shrugged on her coat, and allowed him to escort her to the double doors of the auditorium. There, however, she nearly collided with someone else.

She turned to the person with a polite "Excuse me" on her lips. But the words died in her throat as she saw who she had almost crashed into.

Joe Miller had similarly been trying to beat a hasty retreat; whether to avoid the rush or his daughter, who could say? In his rush to leave, however, he had inadvertently come face-to-face with the one person he had hoped to avoid.

For one confused moment he thought that it was Grace. She looked almost exactly as Grace had during the final months of the pregnancy that had taken her life: rosy, blooming with health, and utterly beautiful.

Briefly, Joe Miller thought a miracle had been visited upon him; that his beloved wife had somehow, inexplicably returned to him. His hard expression softened just the tiniest bit. Then the vision spoke. Just one word, beseeching: "Daddy…"

He came crashing back to reality then. It wasn't Grace. Grace was lost to him for good; what stood before him now was the author of her demise, looking at him with those familiar gray-blue eyes, bright with a painful mixture of anxiety and hope. The face was very like the one he had fallen in love with all those years ago, but the hair, the same near-black as his own, gave her away. There she stood, the child who had cost him his wife, her belly bloated with the bastard with whom she had shamed him in front of the entire town (_your grandchild_, some inner voice tried to remind him before he cut it off).

Amy's shoulders sagged with despair as the momentary softness on her father's face vanished. Still she tried once more, reaching out to him tentatively. "Daddy…"

Another expression ghosted across the man's face, unreadable to Amy. Only Mr. Gold, right behind her, saw the expression for what it was. It momentarily threw him; it wasn't what he'd been expecting to see at all. For just the briefest instant, Joe Miller's face twisted with naked, powerful sorrow.

Then the expression was gone as quickly as if it had never been. Wordlessly, the man whirled around and left the auditorium.

Amy was dimly aware of the buzz of voices behind her. She realized that all of Storybrooke had been witness to the scene. The realization brought her no embarrassment; she was beyond that now. So enveloped was she in her misery that she didn't realize that the whispers and murmurs were those of sympathy. There wasn't a person in that crowd who wouldn't have liked to punch Joe Miller in the face at that moment. There wasn't a person in that crowd who didn't want to come forward and reassure his daughter that she was a wonderful girl, worth ten of him.

She could have moved into anyone's arms at that moment. Indeed, Granny, Ruby and Ashley had fought their way to the forefront of the mob. The trio stood waiting for Amy to crumble, to collapse, to seek comfort with one of them. They were ready to give it.

But Amy did none of these things. There was only one pair of arms she sought as her heart shattered in her breast; and it just happened to be the pair of arms that were most readily available. The crowd gasped as one as the girl spun around and blindly flung herself at Mr. Gold.

Caught off guard himself, Mr. Gold nevertheless reacted quickly. His arms came up to catch her in a firm embrace. He held her tightly against him as the dam finally broke and she began to sob. As she wept against his suit jacket a flurry of emotions passed through him. His heart wrung with sympathy for her. He wanted to follow her father into the parking lot and beat the man to death with his cane. He was pleased that she had turned to him for comfort first, even with all her friends close by. Part of him exalted at the fact that the citizens of Storybrooke looked by and large horrified at the sight of her embracing the man they thought of as a monster. Though she didn't know it and probably wouldn't care if she did, Amy had effectively cooked her own goose with the majority of the townspeople.

Underneath it all was the faintest glimmer of hope. Amy had turned to him first. She had come straight to him with no hesitation, knowing he would be there to lean on. Could it possibly be that she felt something for him beyond friendship and gratitude? Was there the slightest chance that her feelings for him mirrored his for her?

These thoughts would have to wait, however. Right now he had more urgent matters on his mind, mainly getting Amy to the car and safely home. "Come, dearest," he whispered into her ear, "Let's get you home."

An eternity seemed to pass before Amy finally broke away from him, though it was only a few seconds. Looking utterly defeated, she nodded in acquiescence. Putting a protective arm around her, taking no notice of the crowd surrounding them, Gold began to carefully maneuver her once again to the double doors. It was slow going, with his bad leg and Amy sagging against him, practically dead weight.

Someone came forward and stood at Amy's other side. "I'll help," said a low voice. It was Ruby.

Looking into the young waitress's face, Gold was surprised to see no hatred or censure. Rather, the young woman looked…understanding. Gold had the uncomfortable thought that Storybrooke's official "wild child" knew just how he felt about the stricken girl who leaned heavily on him. Once again, not able to help himself, he searched her face for any trace of disapproval. Once again, he found none. There was anger, but he knew instinctively that it was directed not at him, but at Amy's father. There was concern for Amy, of course. And there was that knowing look that so discombobulated him.

Ruby raised her eyes to meet his, then, and he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she knew the exact nature of his feelings for Amy, and didn't judge him for it. "Of course you love her," those eyes seemed to say. "How could you not?"

If it wasn't exactly a blessing, it was good enough for Gold. He nodded slightly at the young woman. Those surrounding them thought he was merely assenting to her offer of help. Only the two of them knew otherwise.

Together, they managed to help Amy to the car. Together they settled her into the passenger seat. Before closing the door, Ruby leaned in and gave her friend a brief, tight hug. "It'll be OK, Amelia," she whispered. Amy roused herself enough to give her a weak smile.

After shutting the car door Ruby looked at Mr. Gold over the roof. "Take care of her," the young woman said simply.

"I will," he promised. "Ruby?"

She looked at him expectantly.

He almost asked her _Does Amy feel the same about me as I do about her? _But he thought better of it. He knew she would tell him the truth, but he was afraid of what that truth might be. If Amy _did _love him, if she didn't, either way he was damned. So he said instead, "Thank you."

She shrugged. "Don't mention it." Without further ado she turned and headed back into the auditorium.

As Gold took his place behind the wheel of the car, it occurred to him that, like her best friend, there was a lot more to Ruby Woods than met the eye.

…

As they drove home in silence, Gold seethed inwardly with anger. Surprisingly, it wasn't directed at Joe Miller; though there had been a brief moment when he would have liked to kill the man, he had seen the fleeting sorrow in his face as he looked upon his estranged daughter. There was a part of the man, Gold thought, perhaps the shadow of that happy young man who had died along with his wife, that had longed to respond to the girl, had wanted to embrace her and forgive her, and seek forgiveness himself. But something had held him back. It was almost as though he was a marionette, one whose strings were invisible, but who was still controlled by the actions of another.

No, his anger was all for himself. He never should have allowed Amy to go to the memorial service. He should have foreseen what might happen, what _had _happened. Amy didn't understand that a part of her father wanted to reconcile with her. She hadn't comprehended that spark of pain and remorse in his eyes. To her it seemed as if her father had rejected her once again, this time in front of the entire town.

He should have stuck to his guns and refused to take her to the service. But she had begged and carried on so, he had been afraid she would work herself into a state again. So after getting Dr. Dockery's reluctant approval, he had given in. Now look what had happened. Amy wasn't crying now, but what she was doing was far worse. She was, quite simply, doing nothing at all. She stared blankly out the window, not moving, not speaking. It was as though there was a mannequin sitting in the seat beside him. He would have infinitely preferred the tears.

As they neared his estate, he wondered what on earth he would do if he had to carry her into the house. He knew he couldn't do it alone. He had only been able to get her into the car with Ruby's help. How would he ever manage to get her back out of the car and into the house, much less to the master suite? He should have asked Ruby to come along and help him.

Luckily it proved to be an unnecessary worry. Amy brightened infinitesimally as they started up the long driveway to the house. She thought of this as home now, he realized. She felt safe here, secure as an animal in its den. She obviously felt protected with him as well. Knowing she felt this way brought him some consolation.

"We're home, dear," he said gently as he parked in the circular entrance. He was relieved beyond words when she unbuckled herself and opened the car door of her own accord. Even so, he linked his arm through hers as he guided her into the house. He was terrified that she would collapse at any moment.

Once they had reached the master suite without incident, however, he felt certain that she was going to be all right. She wasn't gearing up for a fit of hysterics. Rather, it seemed as though she had simply retreated into her own mind for a bit, until she was better able to process the events of the day. She was already beginning to emerge from the fugue. When they reached what was her room for the time being, she sighed with relief as she kicked off her navy flats.

"Why don't you change into something more comfortable," he suggested, "and I'll go make us something to eat."

"I'm not hungry," she said. She wasn't being argumentative, only stating a fact.

"You still need to eat," he told her. "You have to think of the baby." It was the one argument that always worked with her, and it didn't fail him this time. She nodded her agreement as she moved to the large chest of drawers in search of one of her many lounging outfits.

By the time he returned with bowls of vegetable soup (made by Mrs. Woods and frozen "for a rainy day") along with crusty bread and two tall glasses of milk, Amy was clad in her familiar uniform of lounging pants and an oversize, wash-faded T-shirt, this one proclaiming "More Cowbell". She had removed her jewelry and washed her face, and her hair was loose from its twist. Sitting on the bed channel-surfing, she looked once again entirely herself.

She even managed a smile when he carried in the food. "Smells good," she said appreciatively.

They ate in silence for a little while, watching the _CSI _rerun she had finally settled on. When it went off and was replaced by a talk show (the topic: "Born-Again Bikers Sleeping with Their Mothers-In-Law") she switched the TV off.

He searched for an appropriate topic of conversation. He didn't really want to discuss the memorial service, and he definitely didn't want to bring up her disastrous "reunion" with her father. If she wanted to talk about it he was willing to listen, but he sensed she wasn't ready for that yet. When he recalled her strange conversations with Henry Mills and Emma Swan, he decided that would do.

"What on earth were you talking about with Henry and Deputy Swan earlier?" he asked.

This gambit opened up a most interesting avenue of discussion. Amy finally revealed to him Henry's theory that all the residents of Storybrooke were, in fact, denizens of the fairy-tale world, placed under a curse by an evil queen. Gold couldn't suppress a smirk when she told him that in Henry's mind, the "evil queen" was none other than Regina Mills.

"He may have a point there," he said dryly.

Amy actually giggled. "That's exactly what I thought when he first told me about it," she confessed.

He had figured out the fairy-tale identities of some of the people in town, she told him, but others were still a mystery.

"Like you and me," he said.

She grinned. "Well…yeah. Emma suggested that you might be King Midas, but Henry shot that down pretty quick. Apparently you don't look anything like the illustration of King Midas in his book."

"Darn," he deadpanned. "I would have liked to be Midas." She laughed. "Perhaps you're Snow White," he suggested. "You look something like her: 'hair as black as ebony, skin as white as snow…'"

_No, _he thought suddenly. _She's not Snow White, any more than you're King Midas._ He jumped a bit at the thought. Where had it come from, and what did it mean? Certainly he didn't believe this crazy idea of Henry's…so why did it seem to make such perfect sense?

"No, Mary Margaret is Snow White," Amy said, not noticing the odd look on his face as even odder thoughts swam through his head. "Ashley is Cinderella, and Ruby is Little Red Riding Hood—he figured that one out just a few weeks ago, by the way. I guess that makes Granny the grandmother who got eaten by the wolf. He says he still can't figure the two of us out, though. He thinks we may be in the pages that are missing from the book."

Once again silence fell between them. They were each lost in their own thoughts. They had no way of knowing that, as was so often the case with them, their thoughts paralleled one another up to a certain point.

What ran through both their minds was the classic fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast". Though their situation wasn't exactly like that presented in the old story, they each realized that it was close. Only the small details differed: Amy wasn't his prisoner, and she hadn't come to him to take the place of her beloved father. Rather, she had turned to him after her father sent her away. Still, the lovely young girl had come to the home of the monster, only to discover that perhaps he wasn't such a monster at all. The similarities were disconcerting, to say the least.

Once again, their thoughts diverged. _I'm no beauty, _Amy thought. _I'm no prince under a spell, _Gold thought. Then their thoughts melded again: _He could never love me. She could never love me._

The knowledge wasn't terribly painful for Amy. She had long since accepted that Gold felt nothing more for her than a platonic, protective affection. Though she would never stop wishing it could be different, she was happy he felt that much for her.

But it nearly destroyed him. He was starting to suspect that Amy did indeed love him, but the knowledge brought him no joy. He knew she didn't love him as he truly was. Rather, she loved the man she believed him to be; the man he had dared to believe in his more fanciful moments that he could be. But just as a leopard couldn't change its spots, a villain couldn't suddenly transform into a hero. And he was a villain; there was no doubt of that. Perhaps he hadn't always been so, but he had played the role too long, and found that it suited him too well. He could never be the man Amy needed. He could never be the man she deserved.

_But I do love her,_ he thought almost desperately. _Doesn't that prove _something? _Doesn't it prove that maybe, deep down, I'm not truly a monster?_

The answer hit him with such force it seemed to come from outside himself. As he comprehended the truth of it he sank into despair.

_It proves only that a monster can love, too._

…

He left her shortly after that. Amy understood him well enough to realize he was deeply disturbed about something, but she assumed it was the events of the day that had upset him so. She had no idea of the darkness that had descended upon his soul.

Surprisingly, he didn't return for the rest of the evening. For the first time in weeks, Amy was alone with her own company. She had never minded solitude before, but she found now that it was unbearable. She tried to occupy herself. She attempted to read, but found herself staring at the same page for half an hour, having absorbed none of the words. She turned on the TV, but found nothing on that captured her attention. The laptop likewise held no interest for her.

Around ten she heard his slow, careful footsteps coming down the hall, punctuated by the thump of his cane. He hesitated outside her door, and she expected him to knock.

After a moment, though, the footsteps moved on, and she heard the door to the guest room open and shut. So he wasn't planning to come back. She felt a wave of disappointment, but she understood. He was obviously tired. It had been an exhausting day. Perhaps a good night's sleep was what they both needed.

Bored as she was, long and trying as the day had been, she expected to fall asleep quickly. But for the first time since she became pregnant, sleep eluded her. The room was too warm, for one thing. Even with the fireplace turned off, the temperature in the room was almost stifling. She tossed and turned a bit, trying and failing to get comfortable. _Maybe if I change into something cooler, _she thought.

Rifling through the dresser, she found the coolest sleepwear she had: the pale blue satin nightie Mr. Gold had given her when she was in the hospital. With a sigh of relief she discarded the T-shirt and flannel pants and slipped the gown on along with its matching panties. Yes, that was much better.

She climbed back into bed. Surely now she would be able to fall asleep. But though she was more comfortable now, sleep still didn't come. What came in its place were the memories of the day she had just spent. She had managed to put the events of the day out of her mind, but now they returned with a vengeance. No matter what she tried to think of instead, the memories flooded in and crowded out her would-be pleasant, sleep-inducing thoughts. Finally, with a sigh, she stopped fighting and let them simply wash over her.

…

He woke from his fitful doze to the unmistakable sound of weeping coming from the next room. The sound didn't surprise him, but it bothered him. He shouldn't have left her alone for so many hours. He should have stayed with her, talked with her about what had happened. Left alone, he should have realized, she would naturally ruminate on the events of the day: the memorial, which was bad enough, and then her run-in with her father. As tender-hearted as she was, he should have known that she would torment herself over her father's latest rejection. But he had needed to be alone with his own demons, so he had left her to face hers on her own. Gold was a man just learning to feel again; it was natural that he would make some mistakes along the way, but he should have known better.

There was only one thing to do now. Painfully, he rose from the narrow twin bed of the guest room and fumbled for his cane. He had left her alone at probably the worst possible time, but he could go to her now, try to offer some belated comfort to her. As he made his excruciating, pain-fogged way to what used to be his own bedroom, the weeping growing louder with each step he took, he took some solace in the realization that he would have moved to act at the sound no matter whom it issued from. Then again, only the blackest heart could have heard those plaintive cries without being moved. Perhaps there was hope for him yet. Maybe there was just enough man left inside the monster.

The short trip seemed to take an eternity. At long last he stood before the door to the master suite. He raised his hand to knock, but instead simply pushed open the door.

She stood at the window by the bed, staring out into the blackness beyond. Her back was to him, but he could see how tightly her arms were wrapped around herself, and the shaking of her shoulders. When she heard him enter she turned, startled. One hand rose to her throat in her customary gesture of surprise.

At the sight of her, Gold's heart sank. Perhaps coming to her had been the wrong thing to do, after all. She looked so indescribably beautiful silhouetted against the window, clad only in the nightgown he had given her a little over a month before. It had been fairly unrevealing then, but now, with her seventh month on the horizon, it left very little to the imagination. The mound of her abdomen strained against the delicate satin; her breasts, he noticed uncomfortably, did the same. Her nipples were plain under the sheer fabric. She might as well have been naked. Her dark hair cascaded around her shoulders. Even with the tears in her eyes and streaking her cheeks, she was a sight to behold. Watching her, Gold was dismayed to feel a tongue of flame uncoiling itself in his lower belly.

For a moment Amy wondered if Mr. Gold was sleepwalking; his face was that blank. When she saw the cane in his hand she doubted it, though it would be just like him to carry the thing in his sleep as well. His pajamas were different, she thought inanely. Rather than the burgundy ones he had been wearing when he came to tell her about Graham, these were forest green. Like the others, though, these were also silk and embroidered with the gold G.

As it had been on the other night, his long, gold-streaked brown hair was messy from sleep. For the first time since she had known him, he needed a shave. His cheeks and chin were covered with silvery stubble. She couldn't help thinking it became him. Without his usual suit-and-tie armor he looked younger, even with the gray that flecked his day's growth of beard. He looked younger, softer, and—even in her misery she couldn't deny it—achingly sexy. With his hair all a mess and the stubble sparkling against his skin, he looked unsettlingly like the Mr. Gold she still saw in her dreams from time to time. Her tears forgotten for the moment, she stared at him, mesmerized.

As she drank him in, he seemed to come to life before her eyes. Awareness came back into those large brown eyes. "Amy," he said in a voice still gritty with sleep.

She suddenly realized that her crying must have woken him. On the heels of this realization came the uncomfortable awareness that she was, in the skimpy gown, as good as naked. Her face flamed. "Mr. Gold," she murmured, dropping her eyes. "I must've woken you. I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," he said, limping carefully into the room. She saw immediately that his bad leg was troubling him more than usual. "I'm the one who's sorry, my dear."

She was honestly confused. "For what?"

"For leaving you earlier," he said, finally stopping a couple of feet away from her. "I should have stayed with you, I realize that now. You needed me, but I wanted to be alone with my own thoughts. I should have been thinking of you. You've been through far too much today."

She knew he was speaking not only of the memorial, but of her encounter with her father. At the memory, her eyes filled again.

He was distressed as the tears spilled over her cheeks once more. "Amy," he said, seeming to have great difficulty speaking. With a start she saw that he was…not crying, exactly, but overcome with emotion in a way she had never expected to see from him. "Amy, don't." He took another faltering step forward.

He tried to think what to say next. Platitudes swam through his mind, but none of them were right, none of them conveyed what he wanted to tell her. For once completely at a loss for words, he simply held out his arms. His cane dropped forgotten to the floor.

Mr. Gold's dark eyes were soft with concern. His voice was so gentle, tender almost. When he held out his arms to her, Amy went right into them without a second thought.

He held her wordlessly as she wept into his shoulder. His arms circled her gently but firmly. His hands moved up and down her back, the broad palms pleasantly rough against her skin. He didn't have the hands of a wealthy businessman, Amy couldn't help thinking. Though they were perfectly manicured and finely shaped, there was nothing soft or delicate about them. His palms were hard and puffy with muscle; she could definitely sense the steel-wire strength in those long, slender fingers. Like his eyes and mouth, his hands were hard, severe, some might say cruel. But also like his eyes and mouth, they were capable of gentleness, of kindness. Amy wondered if anyone else in the world besides her knew this.

Barely daring to breathe, wondering what on earth had come over him, Gold held the beautiful weeping girl. His mind may not have known what he was doing, but his body had no such problem. Of its own volition one of his hands moved to stroke the mass of almost-black hair. It did feel like fleece, he thought, fleece that had already been brushed and cleaned, the softest fleece from a lamb. The faintest scent of lavender clung to it, and against his mind's will he lowered his face to the top of her head and inhaled.

Something else was happening against his will, too. He shifted a bit as he felt the hardness in his groin. Did she feel it? Probably not, he decided. If she had been as slender as she'd been when he first met her, she most definitely would feel it, but now there was a nearly seven-months-pregnant belly in the way. Although, as his arousal continued to grow, he realized that eventually she would know. If he continued to hold her it would be pressing against her stomach before long; if he stepped away from her she would see it. It was a dilemma. For perhaps the first time in his life he didn't know what to do, so he did nothing.

It was she who solved his problem, albeit unknowingly. Lifting her head from his shoulder, she drew away just a bit but remained in his arms. He looked down at her tear-streaked face, that face he had come to see as beautiful even when it wasn't smiling, and his heart melted. He brought his hands around to tenderly wipe the tear tracks from her cheeks. More tears swam in her cobalt eyes and sparkled on her dark lashes, but they didn't fall. She gazed up at him for what seemed an eternity, her expression impossible to read. He gazed back, unsure of what to say or do next. But his blood knew.

Slowly, like a man in a dream, he leaned forward and kissed her softy on the lips.

In his haze he expected her to scream, to slap him, to do _something. _She didn't. She stood stock-still, holding his gaze with her own. Relieved by her non-reaction, suddenly certain that he was dreaming, he dared to plant another feather-light kiss on her lips.

This time, she kissed him back.

It was as though a dam had broken. For a few moments they continued to brush one another's lips lightly; then he parted his mouth slightly and she followed suit. Now absolutely sure he was dreaming, he slid his tongue into her mouth and was rewarded when she made a soft sound in her throat, her hands coming up to tangle themselves in his hair.

When she did this his own hands, which had been resting against her upper arms, were suddenly grazing the sides of her breasts instead. If he were awake, he thought fuzzily, he would end this immediately. But this was only a dream, a wonderful, incredible dream, and he would pursue it to its ultimate conclusion without guilt.

He broke the kiss, smirking at the slight sound of protest that came from her. Slowly, slowly, he lowered the spaghetti straps of her gown. Her eyes widened, but he knew instinctively it wasn't from shock or fear. He freed her arms from the straps and tugged the gown down until her breasts were fully revealed.

He breathed in sharply through his nose, and then exhaled through his mouth. With his breath came one word, barely audible: "Beautiful."

One of those elegant hands came gradually up to caress her left breast. As skin touched skin she gasped and closed her eyes. As each second passed with no sign of protest from her, he grew more and more bold. He stroked, squeezed, kneaded. He ran his thumbs lightly over her nipples until they were rock-hard. Her head fell back and her breath came in ragged bursts.

He slid his other hand around to the small of her back, guiding her towards the bed. When they reached it he sat down and drew her into his lap. He gave her one more deep, probing kiss before moving onward and downward. His lips moved over her neck and collarbone, sucking, licking and kissing. Finally he came yet again to her heaving chest. For a moment he simply buried his face in her cleavage, inhaling her scent. At last he lifted his head just enough to take one tender young breast into his mouth. He ran his tongue over her nipple, eliciting a tiny cry from her as she once again tightened her fingers in his hair.

Until then she had passively accepted his ministrations; now she came to life. Suddenly small hands were deftly unbuttoning his pajama top, skimming over his own chest and stomach with the lightest touch. She moved forward to press her breasts against his bare pecs. As she did she captured his lips again with her own.

Her legs were spread wide on either side of him. Her gown, already half-off, had hiked up around her waist when she sat; underneath she wore the pale-blue satin panties that went with it. Their sexes were pressed together now, separated only by a few thin layers of clothing. There was no question she could feel his erection now, the erection he had been trying to think how to hide only a few minutes before. But since her panties were soaked clear through and wetting his pajama bottoms, concealing his arousal was the very last thing on his mind now. _Quenching_ his arousal, on the other hand…ah, that was another matter entirely.

Almost as if she knew what he was thinking, her hand crept slowly between them. Her fingertips brushed against the telltale bulge. A hiss escaped his clenched teeth as his eyes slammed shut. It was a pity, for he didn't see the slightly wicked and very sensual smile that spread across her face as she very deliberately began to stroke him through the material.

He gave a strangled gasp and let his head fall back. If this was a dream, he decided, he never wanted to wake up. Only in his most private fantasies had he dared to imagine something like this ever happening between them, and this put even his most lurid imaginings to shame.

He wanted nothing more than to simply take her right now…to lay her back on the bed, tear the nightgown the rest of the way from her body, and bury himself in her to the hilt. His member throbbed with the need for release. He knew she wouldn't stop him, knew that she wouldn't protest. It was obvious to him that she wanted the exact same thing.

But he wouldn't. That was one line he wasn't willing to cross, at least not yet. Much as he wanted to slake his lust (and hers…there was no doubting that) he wouldn't enter her. It could be dangerous for her and the child. He had no qualms about making love to her while she carried another man's child, but he wouldn't endanger her by doing so. He knew that intercourse could trigger labor. If not for her previous preterm labor, he would have risked it. But knowing it had happened once, he was loath to do anything that might make it happen again. He would die before he would ever cause her harm in any way.

There were other ways, however…plenty of other things they could do to satisfy his lust, and hers. Smiling at the thought, he eased her off his lap and onto the bed, pushing down on her shoulders gently so that she lay on her back.

For a moment he simply admired her. God, she was exquisite. The blue satin gown was still down below her breasts and crumpled above the mound of her abdomen. He remembered how she had looked before the baby became apparent: lean, boyish even, with small breasts and a narrow waist and a flat stomach. He had thought her lovely then. But now, with her swollen breasts, her widening hips and burgeoning belly…oh, she was breathtaking.

She returned his stare, her face flushed, her breath coming in pants, but her eyes calm. 'Do with me what you will,' she seemed to be saying. He needed no further invitation. Lightly he skimmed his fingertips over the crotch of her panties, which were drenched with her arousal. She let out another soft cry as she arched her hips to his touch. Slowly, painfully slowly, he dipped his fingers into the waistband, placing them on her warm center and the silky wetness there. She moaned and ground herself against his hand. Her own hand flew again to his erection and gripped it firmly through the pajama bottoms.

His smile widened. Oh, yes. There were other ways.

He leaned over her and gave her another hard kiss, flicking her clit lightly with his thumb as he did so. She spasmed a bit but didn't go completely over the edge. Good, very good. He withdrew his hand from her, chuckling deep in his throat at her sound of protest. He had other plans for her. It wouldn't do for her to come too quickly.

Her hand, still gripping him, began to slide up and down his shaft. The warmth of her hand, coupled with the friction of the satin pajamas, was pure bliss. It was with a great effort he held off his own orgasm. So long, it had been. Too long. How had ever lived without this? How could he have forgotten what this was like?

Once again he peppered her neck and collarbone with kisses, steadily working his way south. He lingered at her breasts for only a moment this time. There was another area he wanted to taste, to trace his tongue along, and to bury his face in. He had no doubt that she would go off like a rocket once he did so, and it would be enough to finish him as well.

But he was never to know this. As he trailed his lips over her belly, the baby kicked.

The force of the kick was enough to restore his senses. _Dear God, what am I doing? _It seemed to have restored Amy's reason as well; she sat up, gasping, clutching her stomach.

"Are you all right?" he asked quickly. He prayed she wasn't going into labor again.

She nodded. "Fine," she managed. "Just got the wind knocked out of me, is all. She's never kicked me so hard before."

He rose quickly, straightening his pajamas as best he could. There was no hiding his erection or the large patch of wetness on his pajama bottoms, so he simply pretended they didn't exist. As he attempted to neaten himself, he searched his mind for what to say.

"Amy…" he began, then stopped. What could he say? What was there to say, really?

She looked up at him, still mostly nude. She made no effort to straighten her nightgown. He could see the pink suck marks forming on her neck and breasts, the beard burn on her cheeks. Her lips were swollen and bruised-looking from the force of his kisses. Damn, damn. How could he have done this? How could she have allowed him to do this? How could she still look so beautiful, sitting there covered in the stigmata of his passion?

"I'm sorry," he said finally.

This was obviously not what she had been expecting to hear. A quizzical line formed between her eyebrows.

"This never should have happened," he went on, the words coming easily now though he knew he didn't mean them. "You're very vulnerable right now, and I took advantage of that. I couldn't help myself…you're so lovely, so soft and sweet, and, well, I guess everything that's happened lately has hit me harder than I thought. I should never have allowed it to go as far as it did, though. You needed comfort. So did I, I suppose, but that's not the right kind."

She was shaking her head, no, no. "You weren't taking advantage of me," she said in a low tone, finally pulling the straps of her nightgown back up. "I wanted it."

"You think you wanted it," he said gently. "Trust me, dear; you would have regretted it eventually. This sort of thing never ends well. Thank God the baby kicked and brought us both back to our senses. If that hadn't happened, who knows how far it would have gone? I might not have…I might not have been able to stop."

"I didn't want you to stop," she said, barely audible.

He sighed. "But I _needed _to stop. I could have hurt you, Amy. I could have hurt the baby. Not that I would have meant to do it, but sex has been known to bring on labor. If I hadn't stopped, if I had caused injury to you or the baby by not stopping, I would never have been able to forgive myself.

"I'll never forgive myself anyway," he concluded miserably. "I promised myself in the first few days you were here that I would never…touch you…this way. I told myself I would never…" He trailed off as her eyebrows lifted. The gesture reminded him disconcertingly of himself.

"All this time?" she said softly, incredulously. "All this time, you've…_wanted _me?" Her heart swelled, the pain of the last day forgotten for the moment in the amazing knowledge that he had been feeling the same as she all along.

"No!" he burst out, backing away from her. "No, I…that's not what I meant." At her ever-so-slightly-amused look of disbelief, he began to babble. "I mean, yes, of course I've thought about it before. Who could blame me? You're so beautiful, so kind and gentle, and I'm only a man. You're the only person in this town who _treats_ me like a man, not like I'm…some kind of monster. It's natural that I would develop…those feelings…but I never intended to act upon it!"

Her face softened at his obvious anguish. "Mr. Gold," she said soothingly, stretching out her hands. "It's OK, really. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm of age, I'm certainly not…untouched, and…I've had these feelings too, you know."

"No, no," he insisted, shaking his head. "You _think _that's what you're feeling. I'm the only man who's shown you any kindness in a long, long time. This is only your way of trying to repay me. Amy, you've got to believe me, I never wanted this from you. I never expected this."

"But it's not," she argued, just as insistent but much calmer. "Yes, you're the first man who's ever treated me this well. And I am grateful to you for that. But these feelings I have…they're different. It has nothing to do with wanting to repay you."

"It does, it does," he groaned. "You may think it doesn't, but you're wrong. You don't want me, Amy. You couldn't possibly want me. You're young, beautiful, good. I'm just an old crippled pawnbroker, crippled in my leg and crippled in my soul. If you knew me, really knew me, you'd want nothing to do with me. You wouldn't be able to stand the sight of me."

"Mr. Gold…" she said softly, carefully. She could never have imagined seeing him in this much agitation. It tore at her heart. Did he really see himself as some kind of monster, some kind of hideous, deformed creature unworthy of love? Could he really not see the elegance, the intellect, the carefully concealed gentleness that had drawn her to him?

He groped around for his cane, the cane he had all but forgotten about only minutes before. As if to remind him exactly why it was needed, his bad leg suddenly throbbed in agony. Hissing in pain, he clutched at the offending limb; doing so caused him to lose his balance and he suddenly found himself sprawled on the floor. It was the worst thing that could have possibly happened. He had never wanted anyone to see him like this: helpless, enslaved by his pain. He never wanted _anyone_ to see him weak and vulnerable, but most especially he had never wanted her to see him this way. Unable to move, he could only close his eyes against the horror and pity he was sure he would see on her face.

Within moments those small, sure hands were on him again. Instead of bringing him to dizzying heights of ecstasy, they moved more prosaically now: helping him to sit up, straightening his pajama top, and brushing the hair from his face. Eyes still closed, he felt her press something into his hand. He recognized the cool metal of the knob of his cane.

At this, his other hand grasped hers in mute gratitude. But he still couldn't bring himself to open his eyes, because he couldn't bear to see the look in hers.

She knew this. "Mr. Gold," she said in a firm, no-nonsense voice he had never heard from her before. In her stern tones he recognized his own patented gentle-yet-commanding tenor. He almost smiled at the sound; she really had absorbed some of him in the past few months. "Mr. Gold, look at me."

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes and focused them on her. He was relieved to see no pity in her face. There was concern, yes, and compassion, but no pity, nor the contempt that went hand-in-hand with it (at least in his mind), nor the revulsion he had been so afraid of. There was a steeliness about her expression, but it was more a thing of resolve than of anything else. He had seen it before, when she talked about giving her baby its best chance for a good life even if that meant giving her up. It was easy to forget about this toughness in her, but it was there. As fragile as she seemed, there was that core of strength deep within her. No matter what her life threw at her she would never break…bend, perhaps, but not break. Seeing this rarely-glimpsed side of her, Gold no longer had any doubt of his feelings towards her. There was no question that he was in love.

"Can you stand?" she asked.

He nodded unsurely. "I think so," he said.

She stood and again held out her hand. He almost protested, but at the look on her face thought better of it. He took the outstretched hand and allowed her to help him to his feet. It escaped neither of them that this time he was the one leaning on her.

"We're going to talk about this later," she said in that firm yet kind tone so eerily like his own. "But not tonight. You're tired, and you're hurting. I'm going to help you back to bed and get you something for the pain."

Still numb from his outburst, slightly dazed at the abrupt reversal in their roles, he allowed himself to be led back to the guest room and tucked into the bed. Once he was settled she went into the small bathroom he'd adopted as his own for the time being, returning momentarily with a glass of water and a bottle of pills—his Vicodin, he saw to his relief. The bottle was nearly full; he loathed narcotics and took the painkiller only when he was well and truly desperate for some relief from the pain. This was one of those times, however. Docile as a sick child, he accepted the two pills she handed him and swallowed them with the water without protest. She perched on the edge of the bed, watching him with all the loving concern of a mother…or a wife.

"You need to get back in bed," he told her finally. "You know you're not supposed to be…up and about." His words were fuzzy. The Vicodin had hit him quickly.

"I know," she said. "I'll go right back to bed. I promise. I really feel OK, though."

"I'm so…sorry," he murmured, the words blurring ever so slightly.

She kissed him then. Not a deep, passionate kiss, but a tender one nonetheless. "You don't have anything to be sorry for," she whispered in his ear. He was too stoned already to argue with her.

She rose then. But before she left, she paused to brush some errant strands of hair back from his face.

"You're no monster, Mr. Gold," she told him. Brushing another kiss across his lips, she finally left him.

**Or is he? I think we all know the answer to that by now…or at least we hope we do.**

**This is definitely going to be non-canon after Sunday's episode. I still can't wait, though! I know I'm going to be squeeing like a demented fangirl all through the entire show. I've watched the preview at least ten times on YouTube already. And I have to agree with the poster who wrote "You're not a difficult man to love to me, my dear." **

**Once again, I own nothing but my OCs. And as always, hugs and kisses and sexy Rumple dreams to my readers and reviewers. **


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

For the next few days Mr. Gold managed to avoid Amy. He would look in on her in the morning when he rose, but she was always still sleeping when he poked his head in, which was his intention. For the first time in months, he took to staying at the shop as late as possible, often arriving home close to midnight. He always called to say he was going to be late, but he called the house phone and Ruby or Ashley was usually the one who answered. Each assured him they didn't mind staying with Amy until he got home. Most of the time Amy was asleep again by the time he made it home, which again was intentional on his part. If she did happen to be awake he would poke his head in long enough for a quick hello, then excuse himself to retire for the night.

This system worked for a few days. Then a night came when he _had _to come home at the regular time, as Ashley had to go to her second job at the bowling alley and there would be no one to stay with Amy. Uncomfortable as the prospect was of spending the evening with the girl he had practically made love to, he couldn't leave her alone. So, reluctantly, he closed the pawnshop at the usual hour and went home to face what he knew would be an awkward evening.

He needn't have worried. Amy greeted him that night with the words, "Look, let's just pretend it never happened, all right?"

Gold couldn't decide whether to be relieved or disappointed at her statement. On the one hand, he was relieved that she wasn't going to insist on a long discussion of the events of that night. On the other hand, he was disappointed because he believed Amy, too, must have realized their encounter had been a terrible mistake.

But that wasn't the case. "I don't regret what happened," she continued, "but I know you do. And I don't like this weirdness between us. I miss spending time with you. I miss our…friendship."

"So do I," he admitted. The admission, which would have been unthinkable to him even a few weeks ago, came easily.

"So let's just move on," she said. "Like I said, it never happened. I can live with that, if you can. But Mr. Gold…" she paused.

"Yes, dear?" he asked, feeling comfortable enough now to stop hovering in the doorway and come into the room.

She seemed to be choosing her next words carefully. "If you ever change your mind about…_us_…if you ever decide you do want…something more…well, I could live with that too." These last words were said in a rush, as if she had to get them out before she lost her nerve.

He nodded gravely. "Understood," he said in a voice just as solemn as his expression. But deep inside him, the tiniest spark of hope flamed.

After that, each of them did an admirable job of pretending their passionate episode had never occurred. They swiftly fell back into their old routine. Mr. Gold excused himself to whip up a quick stir-fry. He had bought the chicken and vegetables pre-sliced, so it was ready in half an hour. While the meat and veggies sautéed he cooked a pot of rice. When the meal was done, he made up two plates and carried them back to the suite, just as he had done for the past several weeks until…a few nights ago.

As they ate he filled Amy in on the latest happenings in Storybrooke. The big news was that Emma Swan was running for Sheriff. Regina had planned to put Sidney Glass in the position, and had gone so far as to tell Emma as much. It was implicitly understood that his first act as Sheriff would be to fire Emma as his deputy. Emma had been despondent, seemingly thwarted by the Mayor at last, until she happened to take a look at the town charter (Mr. Gold made no mention of the fact that he had actually taken the town charter to the apartment she still shared with Miss Blanchard). The town charter clearly stated that in the event of the acting Sheriff's resignation or death, a new Sheriff was to be elected by the townspeople; the mayor could merely appoint a candidate. The upshot of this was that Emma was now running against Sidney Glass for the office.

Amy was delighted. "Emma will be a better sheriff than Sidney Glass could ever dream of being," she said. "She knows the business, after all, and all Sidney knows is reporting. Besides, it will be good for the town to have a sheriff who isn't in the mayor's pocket." Her eyes darkened. "I just hope she wins. I know people like her, but I'm sure Mayor Mills will try to bully people into voting for Sidney. She'll probably succeed, too."

Prudently, Gold decided not to tell her of his plans to ensure that the townsfolk would vote for Emma Swan for their new Sheriff. He did tell her that he was sponsoring Emma's campaign. "Her benefactor," he called himself. Amy saw nothing ominous in this. After all, he had already become _her _benefactor, and so far he had asked for nothing in return. Had she known of the plans Mr. Gold had originally conceived for her baby when he took her in, she would have seen a far more sinister meaning in the term.

As the evening wore on, she asked him again about his progress in locating an adoptive family. He was vague as always: "I haven't found anyone suitable yet."

She was unusually persistent. "The attorneys haven't sent you _anyone_?"

"They've sent me a few…candidates," he admitted, "but I could tell by reading their files that they weren't anyone you'd want to consider." This was the truth as far as it went. Of the files he had received, one childless couple had specifically wanted a boy. Another couple had wanted to pretend the child was their own, with the wife even planning to simulate a pregnancy. Still another couple had wanted a complete history of both the mother and father of the baby. He briefly told her about these three, omitting the dozen or so other dossiers he'd received that she likely would have been interested in.

At first he hadn't been sure why he was so reluctant to find a suitable set of parents for Amy's child; after all, that had been his plan from the beginning. But he found himself dismissing even the promising information he was given, often for silly reasons: "The husband is allergic to most animals. A child should grow up in a home with pets." For a time he hadn't understood his own motivations, something that had never happened to him before. Finally, though, his motivations had become clear to him, or rather he had allowed them to become clear to him.

Oddly enough, it was Regina Mills who had torn the blinders from his eyes. When she learned of his role in Emma Swan's decision to run for Sheriff, she had come to his shop in a rage. He had told Amy of the earlier part of their conversation, and she had chortled with glee at the thought of the mayor "all beshit and forty miles from water" (as Mrs. Woods had been known to describe someone in a fit of anger). But, as he often did, he had kept a certain part of their exchange to himself.

"_Regina," he had said with a bland smile as the mayor stormed into his shop. He wasn't surprised to see her, nor was he surprised when she flipped the sign on the door from "Open" to "Closed". He'd been expecting this little visit; had been looking forward to it, in fact. "Shall I move some things, make a better space for your rage?" he queried, thoroughly enjoying the rage that radiated from the attractive mayor._

_She wasn't amused. "You found that loophole in the town charter," she stated, moving with long, furious strides to the counter behind which he stood._

"_Legal documents," he pointed out as he moved from his space behind the counter. "Contracts, if you like. Always been a fascination of mine."_

"_Yes, you love to trifle with technicalities," Regina shot back._

_He smiled again. "I like small weapons, you see. "The needle…the pen…the fine point of the deal. Subtlety. Not your style, I know."_

_She had been perusing the items in one of his glass display counters; now she whipped her head to glare at him. "You're a bastard," she snarled._

_He gave a quiet chuckle. "I think your grief's getting the better of you, Regina," he announced. He was the only person in town who dared to call her by her first name instead of her official title. She had never realized until now how much she hated this. "Shame what happened to Graham," he continued. It was a shot in the dark; he knew this, but she couldn't be sure._

_She faced him fully then, those dark eyes glinting dangerously. "Don't you talk about him," she said in a low, threatening tone. "You know nothing."_

_Her reaction told him what he needed to know: that she had indeed had a hand in the young Sheriff's untimely demise. How had she managed it, he wondered dispassionately. Some sort of fast-acting, untraceable poison, maybe? He filed the knowledge away for later contemplation. For the moment there were other pressing matters at hand._

_He forced himself to shrug nonchalantly. "What is there to know? He died."_

_She leaned against the counter behind which he now stood. "Are you _really _going up against _me_?" she asked. There was a hint of incredulity in her tone._

"_Not directly," he answered with that infuriating bland smile. "We are, after all, both invested in the common good. We're just picking different sides."_

_Her reply was swift: "Well, I think you picked a really slow horse this time." She paused before her next verbal thrust: "Not like you to back a loser."_

"_She hasn't lost yet," he responded, still maddeningly calm._

_Regina was suddenly airy. "She will," she predicted._

_Gold gave a little verbal thrust of his own. The sentence was slow and deliberate: "Never underestimate someone who's acting for their child."_

_His words had the intended effect. The mayor jerked back as if slapped. "He's _not _her child," she snapped._

"_Ohh," Gold breathed. "Now who's trifling with technicalities?"_

_She glared at him murderously for a moment. If looks could kill, he thought idly, he'd be expiring on the floor of his shop right now. Then her expression suddenly changed, becoming friendly. He was immediately on guard, but still didn't expect her next words._

"_How is dear Amy?" she asked._

_Gold was momentarily flummoxed. "What?" he asked stupidly._

_She smiled, triumphant. "All this talk of deals and children," she said. "It naturally put me in mind of poor Amy and her situation. Tell me, have you managed to talk her into signing a contract yet?"_

_He decided to play dumb for as long as he could. "A contract?" he asked. "Why, whatever do you mean, Regina?"_

_Her e yes narrowed just the slightest bit. "You know what I mean," she replied, her tone still deceptively light. "Have you talked her into handing her child over to the 'right set' of adoptive parents…in return for a substantial sum?"_

_Gold nearly blanched. Only with a tremendous amount of willpower did he manage to refrain from doing so. "I'm not sure I understand," he said. "Amy is planning to give her child up for adoption, yes…but do you really think she could be so crass as to _sell _the baby?"_

"_Of course not," Regina purred. "That girl would never dream of doing such a thing…but _you _would."_

"_What sort of accusations are you trying to make now, Regina?" he asked. He hoped, prayed, she couldn't hear the sudden thumping of his heart._

_Now her smile was smug. "I have my eyes and ears around town, Mr. Gold," she announced. "I know how you _kindly _offered to help Amy Miller find a good home for her baby. A real Good Samaritan, you are. However, knowing what I do of your…past actions, I can't help being concerned that the poor thing has no idea of what she's gotten herself into."_

_He said nothing. He wouldn't dignify her insinuations with a response, however true they happened to be._

_Her smile widened. "I also hear you're apparently going about it in a somewhat legal manner this time," she went on. "Very impressive. But I suppose you had no choice, did you? We both know that girl is no fool. If she even suspected there was something…not quite kosher…afoot, she would end things immediately."_

_He strived to keep his tone complacent. "Are you threatening me, Regina?"_

"_Why, certainly not, Mr. Gold," she said silkily. "I'm merely concerned. I have a real fondness for the girl. I know her rather well, you know. She used to babysit Henry." The mayor's smile grew colder, sharper. "Have you told her how you…arranged for me to adopt Henry?"_

_Gold fought to keep his voice steady. "No, I have not," he said evenly._

_She laughed. "Of course you haven't. She never would have accepted your help if she knew you were the one who brought Henry to me. I'm well aware of what she thinks of me and my abilities as a mother. But, Mr. Gold, what would she think of _you _if she knew you were the one responsible for my being a mother?"_

"_You won't tell her," he said, this time not entirely able to keep the emotion out of his voice._

"_Oh, won't I?" she laughed, savoring her newfound power over him. _

_But she had forgotten his power over her—the power he didn't entirely understand, but utilized nonetheless. "You won't," he repeated firmly, "because I'm asking you…_please_…don't tell her."_

_Her gaze darkened. For a moment, he was sure she would leap across the counter and throttle him with her bare hands. Then—with an effort only he would have noticed—she relaxed. _

"_I won't tell her," she agreed. "What purpose would it serve? It would only keep that baby from being placed in her rightful home."_

"_What do you know about the baby's rightful home?" he snapped before he could stop himself._

_Her smile turned from smug to winsome in an eye blink. "I've been thinking," she said, in a tone that would have sounded casual to anyone else. "I've been thinking that Henry really needs a sibling."_

_His response was as vehement as it was instantaneous. "Absolutely not."_

_She feigned innocence. "Why ever not?" she asked. "It's the perfect solution. The baby would have a fine home. She would have everything that money could buy…she would have a real family. You know Henry would adore her. He used to ask me all the time for a baby brother or sister."_

"_I will never give that baby to you," he reaffirmed, enunciating each word precisely. _

"_Because Amy would find out?" she asked. "She doesn't have to, you know. If she were to leave Storybrooke as soon as the baby was born…"_

"_And how would that be possible?" he retorted with evident scorn. "You know as well as I do that no one leaves Storybrooke."_

"_That's true," she acknowledged. "No one leaves Storybrooke." Her smile grew smug once again. "But they _could_...if I wished it so."_

_For just a moment he considered this. Amy would be able to leave. She could go to Boston, or anywhere else she wanted. She would be able to have a life far from this insane place, believing her baby was being brought up in a well-to-do, loving home._

_Then he realized just _what _it was he was contemplating…handing over yet another child to the cold, cruel Regina Mills…and he stiffened with resolve. "Forget it, dear," he said firmly. "I will never give you that baby, no matter what the circumstances."_

_Her dark eyes bored into his. He found himself unable to look away. Perhaps, he thought insanely as the woman's eyes seemed to penetrate his very soul, young Henry was right about the woman. Perhaps she was a witch…or an evil queen…or both._

_She giggled suddenly, a high-pitched, artificial trill. "Oh, I see," she said. "You want the baby for yourself!"_

"_That's ridiculous," he said smoothly._

_But she saw right through the lie. "So the town boogeyman wants a child of his own," she sneered. "The fearsome Mr. Gold wants someone to look up to him and love him. Isn't that precious." She smirked. "But how on earth would you accomplish that, Mr. Gold? After all, there are limits to your power. Amy would know. Of course I wouldn't need to let her leave Storybrooke if I wasn't the one adopting the child. She would definitely notice that there was a new baby in your home, just as she was giving up her own baby. Do you honestly think she would allow her child to be raised by an old, deceitful cripple?"_

_He simply glared, praying to a God he didn't even believe in that she wouldn't guess the truth underneath the truth. _

_But God was not on his side, it seemed. Regina let out a positive cackle as she came to the inevitable realization. "Oh, my God!" she gasped. "You don't just want the _child_…you want the mother, too, don't you?" Already knowing the answer, she went on. "You actually think that girl would stay with you? That she would raise her child with you, Adam and Eve and baby makes three in a Georgian estate? Oh, it would be funny if it weren't so pathetic!"_

_Gold went deathly still. "I fail to see the humor or pathos, Regina," he said calmly. "To answer your question, yes, I do believe Amy would consent to stay with me and raise her child."_

"_Oh, I'm sure she would," Regina chuckled, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. "Probably even marry you, if you made the right threat or offered the right amount. She might even force herself to sleep with you, if the monetary offer was particularly generous. But would she ever _love _you?"_

"_Yes!" he wanted to shout. "She loves me already, you heartless, insignificant wretch! And as far as sleeping with me goes, she was more than ready to do so the other night with no promise of monetary gain!" But he said nothing. He didn't want to give her any more leverage, for one thing. Also, though he suspected Amy's feelings for him were genuine, that her desire had likewise been authentic, he still couldn't be entirely sure._

_Perhaps God was on his side after all, for Regina took his silence as defeat. "Oh, you poor man," she said. "You think less of me for taking what I can get, but you're no different. At least I know the difference between real love and a good acting job. Furthermore, I still have a chance for real love; I'm young and beautiful, after all. What chance do you have?"_

_He dropped his head, knowing she would interpret it as another sign of defeat, when he was actually trying to hide the murder he knew was reflected in his chocolate orbs._

"_But let me be the first to wish you happiness with your new…paramour and child," she said, finally, thankfully turning to leave. "Well, maybe not _true _happiness, but the best imitation money can buy." Her laughter rang in his ears as she exited the shop._

_Once the door shut behind her, he finally relaxed his fists. His nails, though short, had carved bloody half-moons in his palms with the force of his clenching. Briefly, he hoped Emma would do the sensible thing and run like hell, rather than doing the noble thing he had anticipated and running back into the inferno to rescue Regina. Leaving the witch to burn would garner her as many, if not more, votes than rescuing her, and it would bring him a great deal more of personal satisfaction._

In his retelling, he ended the mayor's visit with his own line, "Now who's trifling with technicalities?" In his Amy-less revision, the mayor had stormed out angrily after he delivered this line. He hadn't exactly lied, he told himself. Rather, he had only kept part of the truth hidden. Just as he had always done where Amy was concerned…just as he had always done with most anyone who was desperate enough to make a deal with him. It did not escape him that he had never flat-out lied to anyone. He was a poor liar, as he had ascertained during his confrontation with Regina. But one could refrain from telling the whole truth without being actually lying.

Amy loved it, as he had known she would. "Oh, I wish I could have seen it," she bubbled when he finished his edited tale. "If I could have been a fly on the wall…"

Gold smiled thinly. _Thank God you weren't, my dear, _he thought to himself.

…

The fire at City Hall occurred the next day. As with the mine incident, Amy wasn't informed until all parties involved were deemed safe and sound. One day, Gold promised himself, one day when he knew she would understand, he would tell her the whole story. But for now it was best that she didn't know. She knew the building was being renovated; she accepted his explanation that "flammable materials" left lying about by the construction workers were the cause of the conflagration. He didn't tell her that Emma had figured out the true cause of the fire almost immediately, and had confronted him forthwith.

Forty-eight hours after that, Emma Swan was officially the new Sheriff of Storybrooke. She had won the election in a landslide, just as he had planned…not for her bravery during the fire, but for her confession during the public debate that it had been started by him, albeit without her knowledge.

He was slightly nervous that Amy would find out about his (alleged) role in the fire, but planned to explain it away by telling her of Miss Swan's instinctive distrust of him. "I'm afraid she sees me the way the rest of the town does," he would say. He was fairly certain that she would buy this, also. Though he loved her, he was still the devious businessman, and wasn't above exploiting her naïveté and idealism. He told himself that, as long as he planned to come clean to her eventually, it was all right not to tell her the whole truth for now.

However, it turned out not to be a problem. The scant handful of people Amy still had regular contact with—Ruby, Granny, and Ashley—had decided amongst themselves not to tell Amy about Emma's accusation. They knew that doing so would only upset her as well as inciting Mr. Gold's wrath. If Amy hadn't been in such a fragile state, they would have risked it, they agreed. But the way things stood, informing her of what had really happened would only do more harm than good.

All by herself, the new Sheriff Swan reached the same conclusion. Only moments after Gold had left the station following his "confession" and congratulatory speech, the phone on her new desk had rung.

"Hey, Sheriff!" the voice on the other end had chirped.

Emma had known immediately who the caller was. "Hey, Amy,' she had replied, a trifle warily. Could the girl possibly know what Mr. Gold had done?

"I just called to congratulate you," Amy said cheerily, oblivious to the thoughts in the new sheriff's mind. "I wish I could have been at the debate and the election, but Mr. Gold and Doc absolutely forbade it. I'm so proud of you, though! I knew the people would make the right decision!"

No, Emma realized. The girl had no inkling of how Mr. Gold had rigged the election in his own inimitable style. For a second, Emma toyed with telling the younger woman just how she had won the election.

Just as quickly as the idea had come she dismissed it. Amy was in the middle of a dangerous pregnancy. The slightest emotional shock could send her into labor, and finding out what Mr. Gold had done would not count as a "slight" shock by any means. Though Emma feared, mistrusted, and flat-out loathed Mr. Gold, she liked Amy. She had no desire to cause her harm in any way. Soon enough, she suspected, Amy would see Mr. Gold for what he truly was. When and if that happened, Emma would be there for her. But she saw no point in hurrying along the inevitable, especially when it could put Amy's life and that of her baby in jeopardy.

So she forced herself to accept Amy's congratulations cheerfully enough. Amy heard the sadness underlying her tone, but she naturally believed Graham was the cause. "He'd be proud of you, too, you know," Amy said softly during the brief conversation.

Emma swallowed hard. She had managed not to think of Graham too much during the election, but Amy's well-meaning words had brought him back. Suddenly he was there in the office with her, the office where he had so recently breathed his last. "I _am _proud of you," she imagined him saying. "Give Regina hell for me, will you?"

She choked back a sob. "Thanks," she told Amy. "I hope he would be." She waited a beat before saying, "Oh, shit. The scanner just went off. Looks like I've got a public intoxication on Main Street."

On the other end, Amy laughed. "Ten to one it's Leroy Brown," she said. "I think he's the only one in town who ever gets arrested for PI…or DUI…or anything involving the letter I."

"With a name like Leroy Brown, can you blame him?" Emma quipped, and was rewarded with a chuckle.

"Well, I'll let you get off and go do your job," Amy said. "Congratulations, again. Hope Leroy isn't too surly."

"Thanks Amy," Emma said. "I'll try to come visit before too long." As soon as the words were out she regretted them. Lying to Amy over the phone was one thing, but how would she ever manage to do it to her face?

_I will tell her the truth, though_, she vowed to herself as she hung up the phone. _Once she has the baby, once she's not in danger anymore, I'll tell her everything. And if I ever have the slightest hint that Mr. Gold is planning to hurt her in some way, I'll tell her sooner._

She didn't think it would happen, though. Though she didn't trust Mr. Gold as far as she could throw him—with an anvil tied on for good measure—she had to admit his intentions towards Amy seemed honorable. If she didn't know better, Emma mused, she would think he truly loved the girl. The few times Emma had seen them together, he had been most protective and solicitous of her. And Emma, who could spot a liar at twenty paces, knew the emotions were genuine. He definitely felt something for Amy. Maybe it wasn't the healthiest dynamic for a loving relationship, maybe it wasn't even love, but still…it was _something._

Across town, Regina smiled. Though Gold had managed to thwart her scheme of installing Sidney in the sheriff's department and uninstalling Emma, he had unwittingly given her the tools for her revenge in the same stroke. If she could convince the Swan bitch that the pawnbroker had sinister designs on Amy, she could make him pay. And Regina knew exactly how she could convince the new sheriff of this.

Gold had made her promise she wouldn't tell Amy of his role in her adoption of Henry, he had never made her promise she wouldn't tell anyone _else._

With a truly wicked smile marring her attractive features, Regina crossed her study, her destination being the sideboard which held her decanter of homemade hard apple cider. She poured several finger into a squat crystal glass and downed them quickly, then poured several more fingers and downed them with equal haste. The alcohol didn't affect her in the slightest—witches had a high tolerance for mind-altering substances—but she knew how to act as if she were well and truly inebriated. Gazing into the mirror above the sideboard, she mussed her perfectly arranged hair. She forced her eyes to unfocus and her mouth to slacken. Yes, that would do nicely. Satisfied with her sudden transformation into a drunken sot, she picked up her cell and pressed a single button.

"Sheriff Swan?" she slurred when Emma answered. "Sheriff Swan…get your ass over here. You know who this is. I need…I need to talk t'you. Need to tell you something…something 'bout Henry."

Over Emma's startled squawks, she hung up. That should do the trick, she knew. She would have another couple of drinks while she waited for the Sheriff to arrive, just in case. But she had no doubt that her plan would go swimmingly. Just as she intended. It was time to show Gold who was really in control of this town.

Smiling at her reflection—no longer seeing the disheveled mayor, but instead the beautiful, invincible Queen she had once been, and still was if only in her own mind—Regina settled in to wait.

**(Cue ominous music) Duh duh DUH!**

**As I mentioned in the last chapter, we have officially entered the land of the Alternate Universe. Although I adored last week's episode just as much as I thought I would—and even choked up at a couple of moments—I already had this story finished in my head from about the fourth episode on. If Belle were truly dead, and not locked in some sort of mental ward-slash-dungeon, I might try to incorporate "Skin Deep". But in my version of events, Gold loves Amy and Amy alone, and Belle's return would play all kinds of havoc with that. Can't bring myself to kill off my favorite Disney princess, so I'm just going to pretend she never existed. My story isn't exactly "Beauty and the Beast", but there are some elements of it contained within, as well as some elements of the original Rumpelstiltskin story that will come out later. So all Rumbelle fans be forewarned: though I'll try to keep as much of the story as possible in canon, "Skin Deep" never happened in my version of Storybrooke. (Which also means that Mr. Sexypants—ahem, I mean Mr. Gold—still isn't aware of his true identity, though he definitely suspects something is up at this point.)**

**Coming up next chapter: a confrontation. Amy Miller leaves the realm of "perilously-close-to-Mary-Sue-dom" hopefully forever. I worried early on that she was just too damn sweet and compliant, with almost none of the spirit and fire that would make a man like Mr. Gold/Rumple fall for her. Then I watched an interview with Ginnifer Goodwin and Sexiest Man Alive Robert Carlyle (I know he isn't officially, but that's a travesty on People magazine's part) where Ginnifer said that the Evil Queen left only the weaker aspects of people's personalities intact when she enacted the curse. That made sense to me. As the story progressed, some of Amy's mischievousness and high spirits did come out (the horse doody incident, for example), and I realized that the true Amy was not a spineless crybaby like her Storybrooke counterpart is sometimes in danger of being. The piss-and-vinegar side of her will come out next chapter, when she confronts Mr. Gold about his nefarious schemes.**

**To observe the Golden Rule of CYA, I will state again that only my original characters belong to me. I don't suppose my storylines can truly be called my own since they contain characters owned by ABC and others, so we won't go there. **

**I love my readers and simply worship my reviewers! Someday I will make myself write a few reviews of my own. I have a week off coming up about a month from now, so I will make that one of my goals for my staycation. But never fear, I'll update this little tale long before that. TTFN!**


	11. Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

Mr. Gold, blissfully unaware of the mayor's latest move to destroy his life, had passed an uneventful but pleasant day in the pawnshop. He had few customers, but that didn't bother him; the pawnshop was nowhere near being his main business interest, more like a hobby. He spent the day puttering around, rearranging a few displays, restoring a few antiques. But mostly, he spent the day thinking.

He had finally come to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, he and Amy could have a life together. He had finally accepted that she truly cared for him, although he was still a bit unsure as to why. Her gratitude for everything he'd done for her, as she'd said, was only a small part of it. He had finally come to realize this. There was a world of difference between being grateful to someone and being their friend, and Amy, he realized with no small amazement, was his friend. What was even more astonishing was that she was willing to be more, had even come out and said so. If their encounter the week before was any indication, she even _wanted _to be more. It had occurred to him that if she had only accepted his advances out of a desire to "repay" him somehow, she would not have responded physically as she had. He remembered the flush of her cheeks, her ragged breathing, and the dampness between her legs. She couldn't have faked that kind of desire; for some reason he couldn't fathom, she was really attracted to him.

So perhaps there was a chance for them, he concluded. Now that he was finally open to the idea, he had to make some plans. He couldn't imagine going home tonight and blurting out, "I love you. I want you to stay with me. I want to raise your child as my own". No, that wasn't his style. He would do things much more gradually. But he _would _start tonight.

He decided he would start by telling her a partial truth: that during his search for a good home for her baby, he had realized that the baby already had the best home imaginable, with Amy herself. He would tell her that he wanted to help her keep the child. As soon as the baby was born and Amy was recovered, she could resume her position as his housekeeper; and she and the baby could live in the small apartment where she had spent her first three months in his home. He would begin giving her a regular paycheck so she would be able to cover the baby's expenses. He knew her pride would make her balk at the prospect of him supporting the child himself, but if she were earning the money to do so it would be a different matter. Gold didn't anticipate any problems with the first phase of his new plan. He knew Amy desperately wanted to keep her daughter. Maybe she had even hoped he would help her find a way to do so. By granting her unspoken wish, he would prove to her once and for all that he really did care for her.

The second phase of his plan would be easy. He would simply continue his friendship with Amy. And he would dote on the baby. He knew that would be no problem. It would have shocked everyone in Storybrooke to know that, in his own way, Mr. Gold loved children just as much as Marco the handyman. But where Marco was a natural child magnet, friendly and approachable, Gold was more…well, reserved. Babies liked him, that much was true; on the rare occasion when he had come face-to-face with an infant, the child would invariably smile and coo, often reaching for him. At these times Gold would be surprised at the sudden ache in his heart. He had never understood it before, but now he knew it for the longing that it was. He had thought for years that he had no wish to be a father, when in fact it was the thing he'd wanted most.

On most occasions when a baby reached for him, the horrified mother or father would immediately jerk the little one away, perhaps in fear that he would snatch the child and run for the hills. One or two had consented to let him hold the child briefly, however. And on these occasions the ache in his heart would almost overpower him. Looking back, Gold almost wondered if he _had _been a father at some point, some time in that distant past which he couldn't quite recall. For he had handled the few babies he'd held with ease, not jostling them as so many did, but holding them still and close. He would smile into their faces and speak to them, softly but not in the ridiculous gibberish so many people used. The infant would smile back at him and nestle close, letting out a wail of protest when the apprehensive parent reclaimed them.

Sadly, even the infants who smiled and reached out to him soon came to fear him. As the children grew older, they picked up on their parents' fear and became afraid themselves. It probably didn't help matters that some parents in town used him as a threat: "If you're bad, Mr. Gold is going to come and get you!"

But with Amy's child it could be different, _would _be different. The little girl would grow up knowing him. She wouldn't take on her mother's fear, because Amy had no fear of him. She wouldn't think of him as a threat, a boogeyman who would spirit her away if she didn't behave; she would see him as nothing more than kindly Mr. Gold, who lived with her and her mother. With her he would be able to indulge the affectionate, paternal side he had only recently discovered he possessed. She would grow up knowing that he cared for her, loved her even. And he knew he would love her, because she was flesh and blood of the woman he loved.

Eventually, Amy would come to realize that he cared for her child as much as he did for her. And that was when the final part of his plan would go into effect. Then, _then_, he would tell her that he loved her. He would tell her he wanted to be her child's father. He would tell her that he wanted them to be a family, the family she'd never had, that he'd never had (_or had he?_). At last, at long lat they would have their happy ending.

It wouldn't take long, he was certain. Perhaps a year. Maybe even less than that. No matter how long it took, the end result would be the same: he and Amy would be married. He would formally adopt her daughter. Eventually there could be more children, if Amy wished it and Nature complied. Either way, Amy would have what she'd wanted all along for her baby: loving parents who could give her everything she could ever want. And he, he would have his happy ending at last.

Eager to put the first part of his new plan into action, Gold left the shop in an unusually ebullient mood that night. As he made his slow way to the parking lot on the next block where his Bentley waited, he ran into a few townspeople: Dr. Hopper walking Pongo. Flora Fae, one of the proprietresses of the Storybrooke Family Shoppe. Mr. Clark, who ran the pharmacy-slash-convenience store around the corner. The Nolans, out for an evening stroll. To each he offered a smile and a friendly greeting. He took a certain perverse amusement in their reactions. To a one, they all paled and looked as if they dearly wished to run off screaming. However, they all composed themselves enough to return his greeting (though Archie Hopper's knees were practically knocking as he did so). As he passed them by, each of them breathed a quiet sigh of relief and inwardly marveled at the fact that the sinister Mr. Gold had seemed downright cheerful. None of them cared to speculate on the reason for this.

Mr. Gold's good mood lasted throughout the drive home. It lasted as he entered the house, hanging his winter coat up in the foyer before continuing onto her room—the room that he hoped would eventually be _their _room. It lasted as he tapped on the door before entering, the now-familiar greeting of "Good evening, dear," on his lips.

As soon as he entered, though, the words and the good mood died. For Amy, rather than being sprawled on the bed in her lounging clothes, was sitting in one of the armchairs fully clothed in a sweater and jeans. In her usual place on the bed lay an open suitcase.

He knew immediately that something was wrong. "Amy?" he said, struggling to keep his voice calm. "Is everything all right, dear?"

She smiled, but it wasn't her usual open smile. Rather, it was a small, formal smile that came nowhere near her eyes. He had seen the smile before, he realized. But where? The answer came to him with a jolt: it was the same smile he gave to everyone in town save her.

For a moment he simply stared at her, unable to speak. Yes, something was definitely wrong. Though the fireplace was lit, there was an unmistakable chill in the room. It took him only a moment to understand that the chill was emanating from her direction.

"I was going to pack my things and leave before you came home," she said clearly, in a frighteningly matter-of-fact tone. "But then I decided I owed it to you to give you a chance to explain yourself."

"Explain myself?" he repeated dumbly. "Amy, what are you talking about?"

The false smile widened but still didn't reach her eyes. "I had a visit from Emma today," she said, as if this explained everything.

He was still confused. "What?" Suddenly feeling weak in the knees, he sank into the armchair opposite hers.

"I want you to tell me the truth, Mr. Gold," she stated, still smiling, her tone still deceptively pleasant. But her eyes…oh, her eyes…

"The whole truth," she continued, "not one of your famous half-truths. I want you to tell me who arranged for Mayor Mills to adopt Henry."

The revelation hit him like a punch to the stomach. Oh, God, how stupid could he have been? He had forced a promise out of Regina that she wouldn't tell Amy he had brokered Henry's adoption. It had never occurred to him to forbid her to tell anyone else. With sickening clarity he realized what must have transpired: Regina had let it slip to Emma just how Henry had come to Storybrooke. Emma, knowing he was supposed to be helping Amy find a home for her own child, had guessed his original motivations for doing so. Of course, she had felt it her duty to warn Amy.

"I did," he said simply. No one could have lied to that stone face.

She closed her eyes briefly, as if in great pain. When they opened, they were every bit as flat and cold as his own usually were—and as Regina's always were. "And you were going to do the same thing with my baby, weren't you." It wasn't a question.

"That was my intention in the beginning, yes," he began carefully. "But Amy, dear—"

Her icy control faltered. "Don't," she said, unable to keep her voice from trembling. "I used to think you meant it when you called me that. But you never did, any more than you meant it with anyone else. Did you?"

Knowing it was futile, he nevertheless tried once more. "Amy, darling…"

She cut him off. "Darling," she mused aloud. "That's a new one. I never heard you call anyone else that. I thought it meant I was different to you, somehow. I thought it meant I was special."

"You were," he said quickly. "You are. Amy, please…"

"'Stop it!" she shouted. He flinched; he hadn't been expecting that. Had he ever heard her raise her voice in anger? No, he didn't think so. Though she wasn't quick to anger in any event, on the few occasions he had witnessed her so she had never shouted. Her eyes would narrow, her lips would thin, but her voice always remained calm and sweet, even if the words she spoke were anything but.

But this was not merely anger; this was rage. Amy in a fury was a completely different animal from Amy in a mild fit of temper. The eyes were wide, blazing, the electric-blue of coal fire. She wasn't flushed as he would have expected, but a small red spot burned on each cheek. He thought crazily that if he reached out to touch her, she would be throwing heat like a furnace. He didn't want to think what her blood pressure must be right now. For a moment he considered reminding her of the baby, but realized that was probably the worst possible thing he could do right now. For the moment, perhaps it was best to let her vent.

She jumped up; Gold couldn't refrain from taking a small step backward. Instead of coming towards him, however, she began to pace to and fro, a lioness in a cage. "All this time…" she said, her voice once again at a normal level. "All these months, you've known how I felt about Mayor Mills. You even agreed with me that it was a shame Henry had to be raised by her. And all the time you were the one who gave him to her…no, no, you didn't just give him to her. You _sold _him to her!"

"Yes, I did," he said, his calm voice belying the anxiousness and outright fear that was coursing through him. "But it's not like you think, Amy. I didn't…it was never my intention for Henry to go to a home where he wouldn't be loved. At the time, I believed Regina when she told me how desperate she was for a child. If I had known…" Here he stopped. If he _had _known what sort of mother Regina would turn out to be, would it have changed anything? With a twinge of self-loathing he realized that no, it wouldn't have mattered to him…not ten years ago, at any rate.

Amy stopped pacing to stare at him, uncertain hope beginning to dawn in her eyes. "You regret it, then?" she asked. "You wish you hadn't done it?"

"With all my heart," he said. He meant it. The man he was now truly regretted that Henry Mills had led a miserable existence with a mother who was incapable of loving him. No child should have to go through that. But mostly he regretted it because the knowledge had upset Amy so.

"And you learned from the error of your ways, right?" she continued, the hope in her eyes now almost unbearable for him to see. "You never sold another baby, right? You weren't going to sell my baby…you really were going to help me find a good home for her, out of the kindness of your heart, right?"

He wanted more than anything to confirm this new story she had woven, wanted with everything in him to say, "Yes. Finding a good home for your child was the only thing I cared about." But it would have been a lie. He couldn't lie to her, even though, in her desperation, she might have believed him.

"Amy," he began carefully, "I've never lied to you."

That spark of hope in her eyes vanished as quickly as if it had never been. "So you _were _going to sell her," she stated in a dull tone.

"I was going to accept a broker's fee," he admitted. The words hit her like a slap to the face; with a gasp, she sank back into the chair, covering her face with her hands.

"Amy, listen to me," he said, the desperation now clear in his voice. "I really was looking for parents who would love the baby and treat her well. I knew you didn't want your child to grow up in a loveless home, so I promised myself I would find a couple who genuinely wanted a child, who would cherish her as well as provide for her." Even as he spoke the words he realized how hollow his defense of his actions was. He could try to pretty it up as much as he wanted, but the fact remained: he had been planning to sell her baby. Only now did he clearly understand what he'd intended to do—what he had done before—and it was monstrous.

"So you were going to find a couple who was desperate, and offer them what they wanted more than anything else in the world…for a price," she said, her face still in her hands. The words were muffled but he had no trouble understanding them. "You were going to use them, just like you were going to use me. Some childless couple gets a baby, Amy gets a good home for her baby, and Gold gets a nice fat wad of cash for his trouble. Happy endings all around, right?"

"I was only going to keep part of the money," he said despairingly, knowing it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference at this point. "A small part of it. I was going to give the rest to you, so you would be able to start your life over."

He was wrong. The words did make a difference. They served to send her back into a state of rage.

"You _what_!" she screamed as she leapt up. "How dare you! That would have made me a party to your…disgusting plan! Do you honestly think I would have agreed to such a thing?"

"No, I knew you wouldn't," he said miserably. "That's why I was going to tell you the money was what the adoptive parents would have paid for your medical care."

"You _bastard_!" she roared at the top of her lungs. "As if any amount of money would have made up for losing my baby! You knew…you _know _I want this baby more than anything! You _know _the thought of giving her away tears me up inside! If you really cared about me, like I was dumb enough to think you did, you would have helped me to do that! But, wait, stupid me…there wouldn't have been any payoff for you then, would there?" She laughed bitterly; Gold wanted to put his hands over his ears at the sound.

She strode toward him, and he braced himself for the blow he was sure would come. But instead, she went to the suitcase on the bed and began zipping it shut.

"Amy…what are you doing?" he croaked out of a throat suddenly gone dry.

"What does it look like?" she snapped. "You think I would stay here now?"

He wanted to reason with her; he wanted to fling himself at her feet and beg her forgiveness; he wanted to tell her everything. He opened his moth to say, _Stop, wait, I changed my mind. I _do _want to help you keep your baby! That's what I was coming home to tell you tonight! _What popped out instead was ludicrous: "You shouldn't be doing any heavy lifting in your condition."

She gave him a scornful glance. "What, you're afraid I'll damage the merchandise?" she quipped. The disgust in her tone cut him like a knife. "Don't worry, I only packed a few things. I'll have the Sheriff come by for the rest of my stuff tomorrow." At this she gave an ugly laugh. "Ironic, isn't it? The sheriff brought my things here, and the sheriff will be taking my things out. I felt so lucky that night, you know. I thought I had finally caught a break. I thought, _everyone says he's a monster, but deep down he's really a kind man. Why else would he be doing all this for me? _I should've known." She lifted the suitcase. "_You_ even tried to warn me, in your own way. You told me yourself you were a monster with a crippled soul. If only I'd listened…thank God Emma set me straight before it was too late."

_Emma. _She was the reason for all of this. But no, that wasn't right. Much as he wanted to, Gold couldn't lay the blame for this at the new sheriff's door. She'd only done what she thought was right. She couldn't know that she was a pawn in an unspeakable game; she couldn't realize that she'd reacted to the news of Gold's role in Henry's "adoption" exactly as she was meant to…exactly as _Regina_ had meant her to.

"How did Emma find out?" he asked, more as a way to keep Amy with him just a little longer than out of any real desire to know. He already knew the answer, anyway.

"Regina, of course," Amy said, lowering the suitcase back to the bed momentarily. "Turns out the woman _does _have some kind of conscience. She got all sloppy drunk this morning and called Emma…demanded that Emma come over to her house. Emma said she was completely shitfaced. She cried about Graham for a while, and her father. She said her father was the only one who had ever loved her. She said that ever since he died, all she's wanted is to be loved again. She even tried with Graham, she told Emma…apparently she and Graham had been carrying on an affair for years, but I'm sure you already know that…and when that didn't work she decided to adopt a baby. That was when she let it slip about you selling Henry to her." She decided not to mention that Emma believed Regina had let that tidbit slip on purpose, believed, in fact, that she might well have staged the whole thing just for that reason. She hadn't really had a chance to wrap her head around that theory, and anyway she didn't intend to stay in this house a second longer than she had to.

_Regina, _Gold thought. _I knew it. I knew after that conversation in the shop she would be out for revenge…and after the fire…_Too late, he realized he'd spoken the words aloud.

Amy froze. She hadn't been able to make out all Gold's mumbling, but she'd caught "Regina" and "revenge" and "fire". "Wait a second," she said slowly. "Why would Regina want to get revenge on you for the fire…unless…unless…oh my God!" he could only watch helplessly as the horror dawned in her eyes. "_You _set the fire at City Hall!"

It was all over, he realized as he saw the expression of shock and disbelief on her face. In his agitation, he had let slip the one thing he most didn't want her to know. Even Emma had kept the secret, though why he couldn't guess. But now it was out, and he was the one who had let the cat out of the bag.

"Amy," he said as the color drained from her face. "Amy, I can explain." In mortal terror that the shock would cause her to deliver on the spot, he moved to rise, to go to her.

"Don't come near me," she spat. She backed a few steps away, though he was still seated. "Don't even think about coming near me. You…you're insane. Don't you realize you could have killed them both? Or was that your intention?"

The exclamation tore from him involuntarily. "Christ, no!" The words gushed out like a river; he couldn't control them and didn't want to. He had to make her see. "Amy, you have to believe me. I never intended to hurt them. I was trying to help Emma. I knew no one would vote for her without something…dramatic to prove her bravery."

"So you torched City Hall?" she said incredulously. "_That _was your way of trying to help?" a new thought occurred to her. "Emma doesn't know, does she? She'd have you under the jail if she even thought—"

"She knows," he interrupted.

Amy's legs gave way at the revelation. She sank onto the bed. "I can't believe it," she whispered. "Emma would never go along with such a thing."

"She didn't," he told her. "At first she believed it was an accident. But when she was looking over the ruins she found something…something that led her to believe I was responsible. She confronted me right away, of course. But she couldn't prove it."

"So she confronted you," Amy said numbly. "Yet she still went through with the election. Why?"

"Oh, she still went through with the election," Gold said. "But during the debate, she came clean with the townspeople. She told them I was the one who set the fire, though she couldn't prove it. She told them she couldn't run under such circumstances, and she left the debate. But she still won the election. Her honesty, not her bravery, got her the votes she needed to win."

She stared at him. "And that was what you intended all along, wasn't it?" she asked.

"It was," he confessed.

Amy began to shake. Her teeth actually chattered with the force of her trembling. This time he did rise. "Amy, my darling, I want you to understand," he pleaded. He took a step towards her, hoping she would allow him to come to her and take her in his arms, all the while knowing she would do no such thing.

She jumped up. "Oh, I understand," she hissed. "I understand perfectly. I understand that you're absolutely diabolical…I understand you'll stop at nothing, _nothing, _to get what you want. Setting fires…selling babies…leading idiots like me to believe you're in love with them. Even what happened that night…that was part of your plan, too, wasn't it?"

"Amy, don't," he begged. He took another step towards her.

She squeezed her eyes shut as shudders racked her body. When she finally opened them, they were full of a flat and terrible calm. Her voice, when she spoke, was the same.

"Mr. Gold," she said evenly, "if you take one more step towards me, so help me God, I will take that cane and bash your fucking skull in."

Looking into her eyes, he knew she meant it. He knew it was over. He sank back into the chair, only able to watch helplessly as she picked up the suitcase yet again and moved to the door.

"I'm leaving now," she said in that terrible matter-of-fact tone. "I'm taking the SL. I'll leave the keys in it when I get where I'm going. You can pick it up tomorrow. I suggest you don't try to follow me. No doubt you know exactly where I'm headed, but don't try to contact me in any way. I'll get a restraining order if I have to. I'm sure Sheriff Swan will be happy to help me with that. And you can tell your lawyers, if there really are any, that the adoption is off. There is no way in hell you are getting your hands on my baby."

If only she would let him explain…but he had tried, and she still didn't understand. He hadn't been able to make her understand; he saw now that she was incapable of it. Virtue couldn't understand corruption, deviousness, even if it was done with the best of intentions. He had been right all along: he was a monster, and monsters didn't deserve kindness, or goodness, or love.

He didn't deserve her.

Hopelessly, he told her one last thing as she prepared to walk out of his home and his life: "Amy…what happened that night…it wasn't part of any plan."

Hand on the doorknob, she turned to look at him one last time. He wished with all his heart she would realize, would understand what he was trying to tell her. But he knew it wouldn't happen.

She wasn't angry now, or emotionless, but the look on her face shattered what was left of his heart nonetheless. She gazed at him with a terrible pity.

"You were right when you called yourself a cripple, Mr. Gold," she told him, and her voice was soft, almost kind. "But it's not your leg that makes you that way…'it's in your soul that the true distortion lies'".

Then she was gone, closing the door softly behind her.

…

Later, Amy realized it was a miracle that she made it to town without wrecking. As soon as she slid behind the wheel of the Mercedes the tears she had managed to hold at bay during their confrontation gushed forth; they continued to flow the whole way into Storybrooke. A couple of times she actually had to pull over, stop the car, rest her head on the steering wheel, and cry until the leather was wet and the knobbed wheel left indents on her forehead.

Consequently, it was full dark by the time she finally pulled onto Storybrooke's main street. Once there, she didn't have far to go. Granny's Bed and Breakfast overlooked the town square.

By the time she stepped onto the front porch of the B&B, suitcase in hand, she had regained most of her control. Swiping at her eyes one last time, she knocked.

It took a few minutes for Granny to answer the door; she must have already been in bed. It occurred to Amy that she probably should have called ahead. It really was terribly rude to just barge in like this, even if Granny and Ruby were the closest thing to family she had, and would undoubtedly welcome her with open arms.

When Granny Woods finally answered the door, she was in her housecoat but her hair was still up. So she hadn't been in bed quite yet, only getting ready for it. For some inane reason this made Amy feel a little better.

"Amy!" the older woman exclaimed. "This is a surprise." Her sharp eyes immediately took in the tearstains on the girl's face and the suitcase in her hand. "Darlin', what's wrong?"

At the familiar loving tone, Amy's eyes began to water again. She swallowed hard. "Granny, I…I hate to barge in on you like this, but…I don't have anywhere else to go," she managed before the sobs started yet again.

To her credit, Granny didn't ask any questions. Time enough for that later, she thought. She put her arms around the girl and led her into the house. "There, there, honey," she soothed. "You've always had a place here, you know that. I'll be happy for you to stay as long as you need to." She gave the crying girl a brief squeeze before letting go. "Give me that suitcase, now. You don't need to be carryin' that in your condition. You don't need to be climbin' no stairs, neither. Luckily I cleaned the downstairs rooms today. We'll get you all settled in, and I'll make us some tea and somethin' to eat if you're hungry, and you can tell old Granny what's wrong."

As she followed the old woman down the hall, Amy had to smile a little. Myriad emotions swirled through her: rage, sadness, fear, desolation. But, for the moment at least, she felt cosseted and cherished. For the first time in her life, she felt as if she had finally come home.

…

Several hours later, a black late-model Bentley ghosted down Main Street. The lights and the motor were off; the driver would have undoubtedly received a ticket if the sheriff were about. But Sheriff Swan was in bed, sleeping the sleep of the just. No one saw the Bentley as it paused in front of Granny's Bed and Breakfast.

The SL was parked in the side parking lot. She had made it safely, then. Good. She would be safe at Granny's for the time being; the old woman and her granddaughter would take good care of her.

He'd pick up the SL in the morning. Or no, maybe he wouldn't. She would still need transportation. Perhaps if he simply left it there, she would give in and drive it. It was the least he could do for her now. He wasn't worried that anyone would steal it; everyone in town knew full well who the car belonged to. They'd no sooner steal from Mr. Gold than cut off their own hand.

Now that he knew she was safe, likely sleeping since no lights shone behind the curtains, he could go home and try to get some rest himself. When he reached the turnoff that led to the edge of town, however, he kept going straight instead. He knew already there was no question of sleep this night. Might as well get some work done.

After all, one never knew when someone would need to strike a deal.

**Aaannnddd it's finally finished. I had so many false starts and stops with this chapter it wasn't funny. I was worried it would go into indefinite hiatus like my Dark Knight fic (which I do still intend to finish…one of these days). Finally, my muse was good enough to evacuate its magical bowels on my head (disgusting, I know, but that's the only way to describe it). I _think _we're getting into the home stretch here; another 4 or 5 chapters should do it. But when you're working with characters like these, it's hard to say.**

**I'm not 100% thrilled with this chapter, but I wanted to get it up before too much time passed. Some parts I'm quite pleased with, however. If I figure out a way to improve one of the parts I'm less impressed with I'll edit it. BTW, I'm sure most of you know this but the quote "It's in your soul that the true distortion lies" is from _Phantom of the Opera. _Me and my morally ambiguous sexy anti-heroes.**

**ABC etc owns everything but the OCs, yada yada yada. If I owned Rumple/Mr. Gold, I wouldn't have time to write fan fiction. I suspect my life would resemble a PWP fic.**

**_Je t'aime, mon_ readers and reviewers! (I have no clue if that's the correct grammar and frankly, I'm too tired to look it up. I have to b at work in a few hours.) It looks as if Regina's plot has succeeded, but we all know how the EQ tends to overplay her hand. Will that happen in hr plan to tear apart Amy and Mr. Gold? Stay tuned! **


	12. Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

Emma had just about decided to close up for the day when the man came into the Sheriff's Department.

It was still fairly early, just a little past five, but seeing as it was a weekday she felt pretty sure nothing requiring her services would happen for the remainder of the evening. On the off chance something did happen, she would be on call. So far, though, her tenure as Storybrooke's sheriff had been pretty quiet. The little town wasn't exactly a hotbed of criminal activity. The only arrests she had made had been those of Leroy Brown for public intoxication (three of them so far), but those tended to occur on the weekends. And they were pretty cut and dried: she simply picked up Leroy at whatever establishment had deemed him a nuisance that night (twice it had been the diner, once the bowling alley), deposited him in a cell, and let him out again with a warning once he had sobered up. Really, the PI arrests were more of a way to keep him from the much more serious crime of DUI than anything else. And Leroy was much less trouble than any of the bail-skippers she had dealt with in her previous career. He might give her a little lip when she first arrived to fetch him, but by the time they arrived back at the station he was generally ready to pass out on the closest cot. After he slept it off, he was usually contrite (well, as contrite as Leroy ever got, which wasn't much) and would promise to at least attempt to stay out of trouble, and the matter would be at an end until the next time he got unruly.

If Leroy Brown were the only thing she had to deal with, her new job would be a cakewalk. Unfortunately she also had Mayor Mills to contend with. The woman had seemed to accept the townspeople's decision gracefully, but she delighted in making Emma's job, and her life, as difficult as possible. Emma had thwarted her once so far, right after her election, in the matter of the Zimmer twins. Ava and Nicholas Zimmer had been caught shoplifting from Mr. Clark's store, and after doing a little digging Emma had discovered that the twelve-year-olds had been living by their wits since the death of their mother. Of course, the mayor had caught wind of the twins' situation almost as soon as Emma uncovered it. Regina had immediately arranged for them to be sent to separate group homes in Boston, where, Emma knew, they would be swallowed up by the foster-care system that had chewed her up and spit her out.

Emma wasn't going to stand by and allow this to happen without exhausting all other options first, so she had taken it upon herself to find the twins' unknown father. She had managed to do so via the one possession of the man the twins had—a broken compass. It hadn't been much of a stretch to realize that Mr. Mystery Father had most likely acquired the compass at Gold's pawnshop, and that Gold, being the methodical businessman he was, would have kept a record of the transaction. Both deductions had turned out to be correct. Surprisingly, Mr. Gold had been most accommodating when she approached him asking for the man's name. He had produced the needed information almost immediately and had given it to her with no hesitation. Michael Tillman, it turned out, was employed at the local garage and had had a fling with the late Dory Zimmer approximately thirteen years earlier.

That Emma had been able to track down the twins' father on the strength of one broken compass was miraculous enough. But to Emma, the true miracle was what had happened afterward. Michael Tillman had been initially resistant to take custody of the children he had never even known about. A well-timed "dead battery" on the outskirts of town had turned the tide. Once he actually laid eyes on his son and daughter, it had been a different story…just as Emma had hoped. Tillman had decided to step up and raise the children whose existence he'd never suspected.

Emma, already a hero to the town after her honesty about the fire at City Hall, became even more so after her deliverance of the Zimmer twins from the foster-care system. What was more, she became even more of a hero in Henry's eyes. More than anything else about the affair, Henry's hero-worship galled Mayor Mills. She had set out to take the new sheriff down a few pegs.

And she had succeeded. Weeks later, Emma still cringed at the thought of the Sidney Glass fiasco. How she ever could have believed the reporter was on her side, she would never know, especially with her ability to tell when people were lying. Apparently it had grown rusty during her stay in Storybrooke, was all she could think. In retrospect, it was painfully obvious that Sidney was Regina's man through and through. Somehow, though, Emma had missed this factoid while the whole situation was occurring. Not only had she wound up with egg on her face in front of the town that had just elected her sheriff, Mayor Mills had officially banned her from seeing Henry.

It had been three weeks since she had seen her son, other than a couple of stolen moments here and there (thank God for Mary Margaret. If Regina wondered about Henry's having two "detentions" in the last few weeks, so far she hadn't said anything about it). Emma missed Henry every minute of the day. It was ridiculous, she knew; she had lived for nearly a decade without knowing his whereabouts at all. But the kid had wormed his way under her skin and into her heart, she had to admit to herself. She only hoped it would be a while before he started asking about his father again.

Since she hadn't been allowed to see Henry, Emma had taken to staying longer and longer hours at the station. Tonight, though, she was ready to escape for a little while. She thought she might go to the diner for a cheeseburger and a hot chocolate (heavy on the cinnamon, of course). Afterward, she might head over to the B&B and visit Amy.

Amy was still staying at the B&B. To Emma's immense relief, finding out about Mr. Gold's duplicity hadn't caused any physical harm to the girl. She was still pregnant, now nearing the eight-month mark, and Doc had even eased up on his restrictions a little. She was no longer on strict bed rest, but except for her visits to him, he had asked that she remain as close to home as possible for the duration. So far, she had complied. Aside from the occasional short walk when the weather was good (which, in Maine in February, wasn't often), she had been sticking around the bed and breakfast. Emma suspected that this was more to avoid the chance of running into Mr. Gold than to follow the doctor's orders. In the month since she'd left his house, Amy had neither seen nor spoken to her former employer. But he still knew what was going on in her life. And it was because of Emma that he did.

This arrangement had begun shortly after Ava and Nicholas Zimmer were reunited with their father. Emma had felt duty bound to stop by the pawnshop and thank him for his help in the matter. Not only had he provided Michael Tillman's name to her, he had given the man a month of paid "paternity leave" from the garage, which he not-surprisingly also owned, to settle into life with his new-found twins. Though she still disliked and distrusted the pawnbroker, Emma had to admit that had been a kind thing to do. As such, she felt she owed him an official thank-you on behalf of the department.

He had accepted her thanks graciously before asking her if she'd seen Amy. Something in his eyes as he voiced the too-casual question had forced her to respond honestly that yes, she had, and Amy was doing well. Somehow, before quite realizing what she was doing, Emma had found herself agreeing to visit Amy a few times a week, and to report to Mr. Gold afterward.

Since then, she had gone to see Amy at least twice a week after her shifts. Often it was more like three or four times. Afterward, she would contact Mr. Gold and give him the details of the visit: how Amy had looked, what she'd worn, what they had talked about.

Emma felt like a double agent. She rationalized her behavior by telling herself that she genuinely liked Amy and would have visited her often in any case, which was true, and that she owed Mr. Gold for his help locating the twins' father, which was also true. But there was a deeper reason for it: she felt guilty.

Though she had believed at the time Amy had a right to know about Mr. Gold's past as a baby broker, she was no longer sure that this had applied to Amy's baby. Maybe it had been so early on, when he first took Amy into his home. But Emma suspected that this had no longer been the case as time went on. For Mr. Gold had genuine feelings for Amy. He had never come out and admitted this to Emma, but she had sensed it from the first time she saw them together. He was so different when he was with her: gentle, caring, and protective—a far cry from the man who struck fear into the collective heart of Storybrooke. Seeing him and Amy together, Emma had been struck with the certainty that Mr. Gold had been a good man at one time, and perhaps the good in him wasn't entirely gone. Now that they were apart, she could still see it in the way he asked about her, the look in his eyes as she told him what he wanted to know.

Moreover, Amy had had feelings for Mr. Gold as well. Emma remembered how she had been around him. There had been absolutely no fear in her; Emma would have sensed it in a moment if there had been. All she had been able to sense was gratitude, admiration, and honest liking, and underneath it all a current of what was unmistakably physical attraction. Even now, knowing what she did, Amy couldn't keep the sadness from her eyes when his name was brought up, or the wistful longing from her tone on the rare occasions she spoke of her time in his home.

It was painfully obvious that they missed one another. However, Mr. Gold had honored Amy's demand that he not contact her in any way. And Amy seemed determined to avoid him. Emma couldn't guess why the pawnbroker had stayed away from the girl, but she knew the girl's reasons had to do with her unborn baby.

Amy had decided to keep her daughter. "God only knows how we'll get by," she had told Emma during their most recent visit, "but after everything we've been through together already, I can't just give her away. I'll do whatever I have to to make sure she has everything she needs." Emma admired the girl's determination and courage. She wished she'd had some of that fortitude when she'd been in the same situation.

Emma was trying to help her out however she could. Right now, that was mainly by offering emotional support—at least until she got a few paychecks under her belt. But she wasn't the only one trying to help Amy Miller. Mary Margaret had been quietly stockpiling diapers ("whenever I see them on sale I pick up a few packages," she told Emma) and was knitting a receiving blanket. Marco was hard at work on a cradle, which he hoped to surprise Amy with in the near future. Dr. Hopper had taken it upon himself to help Amy apply for the assistance she would need, such as WIC; he had also given her a copy of the latest edition of Dr. Spock. Ruby and Ashley had pooled their resources and managed to buy a decent amount of 0-3 month clothes. When the baby outgrew these, Amy could trade them for larger sizes at the infants' consignment store in town. Granny Woods had declared that Amy and her baby had a home at the B&B for as long as they needed. Knowing the strain this would put on Granny's finances, Amy had in turn announced she would take over cleaning duties at the B&B as soon as she was on her feet again after the baby came.

But Granny Woods's finances were OK for the time being. When Emma had gone to Mr. Gold's house the day after Amy left to get her things, he had asked her to tell the old woman that their previous arrangement still stood. She still owed him no rent on the inn or diner until Amy gave birth, as long as there was always someone staying with Amy. Though Granny knew something of the events that had transpired, and was absolutely furious with Mr. Gold, she had agreed to this. What choice did she have? Amy and the baby's well-being came first. Mr. Gold was also continuing to pay Amy's medical bills. Emma wasn't sure if Amy knew about this; she didn't think the girl would stand for it if she did know. She had declared, often, that she no longer wanted to be beholden to the pawnbroker for anything. As soon as she got on her feet, she said, she would pay him back for all he'd spent on her. Then she could be done with him. Emma had pretended not to notice the pain in the girl's eyes as she said this.

Lost in her thoughts, Emma didn't notice the man until he was standing right in front of her desk.

Though she had seen him a few times in passing since her arrival in Storybrooke, she couldn't immediately place him. He was in his early forties, she guessed, tall and broad-shouldered. She couldn't help thinking that he was rather good-looking, with strong, masculine features and striking hazel eyes.

Then the man took off the hat he had been wearing, and she knew him. The hair gave him away. There was only one other person in Storybrooke with that oddly shineless hair, so dark brown it could really be called black.

"Sheriff Swan," the man said a trifle nervously. He twisted his hat in his hands as he spoke. "I don't believe we've been officially introduced. I'm—"

"Joe Miller," Emma said. "You're Amy's father."

The man looked startled. "Yes," he said. "How did you…" He trailed off.

"The hair," she explained. She decided not to mention that she had gotten a pretty good look at him at Graham's memorial service. Anger flared in her at the memory of how he'd stared impassively at his daughter as she reached out to him, how he'd turned away from her and left without a single word. "What can I do for you, Mr. Miller?" she asked briskly, biting back the hateful words she really wanted to spew at the man.

Joe Miller fidgeted a bit. "Well, I'm not really sure," he said slowly. "I just…well, I know you've made friends with my daughter. I guess I really wanted to ask you how she's doing."

It was on the tip of Emma's tongue to retort, "Why don't you just go by the inn and find out for yourself?" But as she looked at the man's face something inside her softened. She knew he had not been much of a father to Amy even before their falling-out. She knew he had treated her abominably when he'd learned she was pregnant. But her gut told her that he regretted both of those things. It seemed to Emma that he might be trying, in his own way, to make things right.

"Amy is all right," she said. "She says she feels like she's as big as a house. She isn't, really—she's only gained weight around the middle—but she keeps saying she feels like a beached whale."

He smiled a little at that. "That's how Grace was at the end," he said. "I used to have to pull her out of her chair whenever she sat down." His face saddened at the recollection.

Emma felt a stirring of pity. Up until now, she realized, she had thought of Joe Miller as the villain in Amy's situation. Surprisingly, she had never considered Mr. Gold to be the villain, more like the anti-hero—the man who had originally had nefarious intentions, but who as the drama progressed had fallen for his intended target, only to be hoist on the petard of his past misdeeds. The villain of the piece had been Joe Miller, with his continued rejection of his own daughter.

But now she wasn't so sure. Now that she had actually met the man, she sensed that he wasn't the baddie so much as—what? Perhaps another anti-hero? There was no excuse for his past treatment of Amy. But the fact that he was here now indicated that he was not completely irredeemable.

As if he could read the gist of her thoughts, Joe Miller sighed. "I haven't been the best father to Amy," he confessed. "I'm sure you know some of…our history. I was never much of a father even under the best of circumstances. When she…ran into trouble…I really messed up. I'm still not exactly sure why. Amy had always been a good kid. Good grades, no sneaking out or drinking or trouble with boys or anything like that. God knows she was much better-behaved than I was at her age. When she met that boy, when he got her pregnant, I should have been more understanding. She was only trying to find the love I'd held back from her all her life; I realize that now. If I'd been a better father in the first place, maybe none of it would have happened. I see that now, but I didn't at the time. The truth is I didn't _want _to see it. It was just easier to lay the blame on her shoulders instead of where it really belonged." Wearily, he ran a hand through his hair. Though it was the same shade and texture as his daughter's, it held quite a bit of gray.

Visions of cheeseburgers and hot chocolate vanished from Emma's mind. "Why don't you sit down, Mr. Miller?" she suggested quietly.

…

Emma never fully understood why Joseph Miller had chosen to unburden himself to her, of all people. Perhaps it was because she was a relative stranger. Or perhaps it was because she had once been in Amy's position, young and pregnant and alone in the world. Whatever the reason, he bared his soul to her that evening. Later, she was glad he had. She only wished he'd had time to do the same thing with his daughter.

He told her a little about his life. He'd grown up right here in Storybrooke, the son of a poor family. They'd lived a hardscrabble existence while he was growing up; he had decided early on that he would get out of that world as soon as he was able. Football had provided an escape for him, an emotional escape, and almost, almost a literal one. He'd had offers from several colleges before a devastating injury in his senior year at Storybrooke High. Though he had eventually recovered, his football career was over, along with his dreams for college and a life beyond Storybrooke.

He had made the best of it. He'd managed to land a job at an insurance company after his high-school graduation. He was good at his job and frugal by nature. By the time he was in his early twenties, he had managed to save enough money to buy the insurance company from his boss upon the older man's retirement. Although he was a long way from the privation of his childhood, it still wasn't enough for him. Though he put on a cheerful face to the world, on the inside he was a broken man, always thinking of what might have been.

Then he had met Grace. For the first time in his life, Joe knew what true happiness was. He found it in her smile, and later her arms. She had loved him completely, and he had worshipped the ground she walked on. With her love, he had been able to let go of his bitterness about the past. If the events of his life had led him to her, he would gladly go through them again, as long as she was waiting for him.

When Grace died, just minutes after the birth of their only child, Joe's bitterness had returned with a vengeance. This time it had consumed him completely. Rather than healing with the passage of time, the hole in his heart had instead festered more and more with each year. He had withdrawn from everyone he had left, including his daughter. "I loved her," he told Emma, tears in his eyes. "I love her now. She might not think so, bur it's true. I just wasn't able to show it, for some reason."

His inability to truly connect with Amy had only grown as she did. "It was impossible to look at her, sometimes," he confessed. "She's so much like Grace except for her hair. The older she got, the more like Grace she was. People talked about that; they said how sweet it was that I had a living reminder of my wife, but I didn't see it that way. Every time I looked at her, all I could think of was what I had lost."

Eventually, he had come to blame his daughter for the death of his wife. "I knew it wasn't right…she was only a baby. She had no choice about coming into this world. But it was easier than blaming myself."

As the years went by, he grew more and more frozen in his resentment—at how his life had turned out, at the fact that he was still trapped in the town he had longed to escape. But mostly at the fact that he had lost the one person in his life who'd made him truly happy. Mired in his misery, he was blind to his daughter's love for him. "I was an idiot," he confessed freely. "If I had just reached out to her once, I would have realized that I still had someone to love. Maybe not my Grace, but the next best thing. She tried so hard to make me happy over the years. She worked so hard to make me proud. And I _was_ proud of her…I still am. But somehow, I could never get past my own anger to tell her that."

When he discovered Amy's pregnancy, the rage and pain that had festered inside of him for nineteen years had finally broken free. Unfortunately, Amy had borne the brunt of it. "I said the most horrible things to her. Things no father should ever say to his child. And the hell of it is, I regretted them even as I was saying them. But they just kept coming. Then I hit her. Jesus, the look on her face…I hated myself. I told myself it was her I hated, that she'd shamed me in front of the whole town. But I knew better. I couldn't let myself see that it was my fault, though. If I accepted that I was at least partly to blame for the mess she was in, I had to accept the rest of what I'd done over the years. I shut her out. I kept her at arm's length. No wonder she fell for the first guy who came along. If I had let myself see what I'd done…what I'd _become_…I think the guilt would have killed me."

Emma had to know. "And then you found out Mr. Gold had taken her in. Amy's told me you two had…'done business' together before. I'm sure you know about the adoptions he's brokered. You had to realize he was probably planning the same thing for Amy's baby."

Joe sighed. "I do know. And I did realize. That's the most monstrous thing of all. I just kept…rationalizing, I guess. I told myself Amy had made her own bed, and she could lie in it. I told myself there was no way I was going to let her raise an illegitimate child in my home. I wouldn't let myself think about the fact that it was my own grandchild I was talking about."

"But then there came a point when you couldn't rationalize anymore," Emma said, keeping the censure out of her tone with effort. After all, the man was remorseful now. She knew he had come to her in an attempt to at least begin to fix things between him and his daughter. Telling him exactly what she thought of his past actions wouldn't accomplish anything.

He nodded. "After I saw her at the memorial service…I just couldn't get her out of my mind. You'll never know, Sheriff Swan, how much I wanted to reach out to her then. When she said 'Daddy' and held her hands out to me…I wanted just to pull her into my arms and tell her 'I'm sorry. I love you. You've never shamed me, never. It's _me _I'm ashamed of'. I could hear myself saying the words, I could see myself hugging her…but then, I just couldn't. It was like something was pulling me away. So I ran." The tears finally spilled from his eyes onto his cheeks. He paid them no mind. Emma's own eyes were wet as well.

"That night I started having the dreams," he continued.

Emma looked at him sharply. "Dreams?" Why that should make her think of Graham, she didn't know. But it did…and it made her uneasy.

He didn't seem to notice her reaction. "Yeah. I have them about every night now. They're…I don't know how to describe them, really."

"Try," Emma urged through lips that suddenly felt numb.

"Well…I guess you could say they're about the way things might have been. The way things could have been if I'd been able to move on with my life after losing Grace. Grace is still dead in my dreams, but Amy and I…we're a family. It's just the two of us, like it always was, and Amy takes care of our home, and of me, like she always did. But…we're _happy. _We love each other, and we don't have any trouble showing it. I spoil her a bit, I suppose, but she's one of those girls it's impossible to truly spoil—sort of like she is in real life, I guess. And she's a good daughter, never causing me a minute's worry. We have a very simple life, but it's a good one."

"Doesn't sound that weird to me," Emma said. "You're dreaming about the way you wish it had turned out. I think we all do that."

"Yes, I understand that. That's not really the strange part, though. In these dreams…we don't live here in Storybrooke, and we don't live in modern time. It's almost like…what I've read about medieval times. I'm not an insurance salesman; I'm a miller. Not such a stretch, I guess, considering my surname. I'm sure a dream analyst would have a field day with it."

"So you're living the life you wish you lived, only in a different time and place," Emma said slowly. She thought for a minute what Henry's reaction would be to this: _They're not dreams! He's remembering his real life, his fairy-tale life! _But she was twenty-eight years old, and she'd known all her life there were no such thing as fairy tales. Still, it was…disconcerting, to say the least.

"That's how they started. They were good dreams, in the beginning. I rather looked forward to them each night. But lately…I guess in the past couple of weeks…they've gotten disturbing."

"How so?" she asked.

"She disappears. I search high and low for her. I ask all her friends where she might have gone—and that's another thing; even though we're in another time and place, most of the people I know here in Storybrooke are there, although some of them are quite different. I do everything I can think of, but I never find any trace of her.

"And then one night, after she's been gone for a few weeks, a man comes to me. I call him a man, but he's really more of a…creature. He has the face and body of a man, but his skin is…not right. It's scaly, oddly colored. Sometimes it looks gray, sometimes greenish, and it sparkles. And his eyes are frightening. They're yellow, with no whites, like an animal's eyes."

"Ugh," Emma said, shivering in spite of herself.

"And the strangest thing is I _know _him. Here, I mean, in Storybrooke. As insane as it sounds…the creature in my dreams is Mr. Gold."

"OK, now you're seriously freaking me out," Emma blurted. She wasn't sure whether to be glad Henry wasn't around to hear this, or sorry. It might give him a clue as to Mr. Gold's "true" identity. He still hadn't figured out who Mr. Gold's fairy-tale counterpart was, or Amy's. Nor had he figured out what their story might be. If she weren't banned from seeing him, Emma thought, she would run this by him, get his theories on it. Maybe he could piece the story together from what Mr. Miller was telling her.

Then she shook her head. _Jesus, _she thought disgustedly. _I'm getting as bad as Henry. I'm actually starting to see everyone in town as a potential fairy-tale character. Get a grip, Swan._

"Sorry," she added. "It's just…that was kind of out of left field."

He waved his hand. "I know. Believe me, I know how crazy it sounds. I've even thought about making an appointment with Dr. Hopper, but I'm afraid he would say I was certifiable and haul me off to Juniper Hill."

"You might be surprised," Emma said dryly. "So, Amy goes missing and a few weeks later, Mr. Gold in monster form comes for a visit. Then what happens?"

"_I'm here about your daughter," the creature announces—in the dreams the miller knows him to be an Imp, but he never remembers this in his waking moments._

"_My—daughter?" the miller repeats, still trying to come to terms with the sudden appearance of an Imp in his dooryard._

"_Yes, your daughter," the Imp says with exaggerated patience. "Pretty little thing, dark hair, blue eyes, about yay tall? Lived here with you all her life until a fortnight ago? Suddenly vanished into thin air—poof!" The Imp snaps his fingers and giggles. A chill runs down the miller's spine at the sound._

_It takes him a moment to realize what the Imp is telling him. Finally he gets it. "You know where she is?" the miller asks. The hope in his voice is painfully obvious._

"_Of course," the Imp says casually, leaning against a tree and studying his nails as if the matter is of no great importance. "I can tell you exactly where she is—for a price."_

"_Anything!" the miller says immediately, though he has suddenly realized who the Imp must be and knows he may end up paying a terrible price, indeed for this deal. He doesn't care. All he cares about right now is finding out where his girl is, and if she's all right. He'll gladly pay with his life for the information, if he must._

_The Imp raises one eyebrow. "Anything?" he repeats. "My, my, that _is _tempting—but no. I ask only for a small token."_

"_Name it!" the miller declares, not without relief. Frantically he thinks of the items in his home that might suffice for such a creature._

"_I want your daughter's necklace," the Imp says, his nonchalant tone abruptly turning greedy. His eyes glitter with avarice. He's actually rubbing his hands together, the miller notices. "The one that belonged to your wife, that passed on to your daughter after her death."_

_The miller knows exactly what he's referring to. For an instant his heart twists in pain. It quickly passes. He'd give all the jewels in the kingdom to have his daughter back again. Even if it means parting with one of the only remembrances he has of his wife, he'd much rather have his living reminder with him again._

"_It is a deal," he says, hoping the Imp won't want to shake on it._

_He doesn't; he's too busy clapping his hands and jumping up and down, giving that demonic, high-pitched cackle. "Wonderful!" he exclaims. "Now, go fetch it like a good boy. As soon as you give it to me, I'll tell you your daughter's whereabouts."_

_The miller nearly burns the wind running into the house. It is a small, simple dwelling, sparsely furnished; times have been hard in their village for as long as he can remember. He and his daughter are better off than most. Though he knows he could afford a more lavish lifestyle plying his trade elsewhere, he's never seriously considered leaving. This is home._

_He returns in only moments. Terrified that the Imp will have disappeared in the brief time he was inside, he is relieved to see him still leaning against the tree, whistling an incongruously cheerful tune. "Here," he gasps, still panting from his mad dash and frantic search through his daughter's few possessions. He stretches out the hand holding the necklace._

"_Why thank you, sir," the Imp giggles. "Now, to answer your question…your daughter is with me. Oh, not literally _here _with me," he clarifies as he observes the miller's eyes swerving from side to side, "but she is in my home."_

_The miller gasps, clutching his stomach as if the Imp has dealt him a physical blow. To think of his precious girl being held captive by the likes of this…this…thing! For a moment he thinks he may faint. Fear for his daughter keeps him from this, however. If he passes out now, the Imp will likely vanish, and he will never know what has become of his daughter. Nor will he be able to bargain with the Imp to free her._

"_Please," he begs once he can finally breathe again. "Please tell me she's all right. Please tell me she isn't harmed…that she's _alive. _I beg you, Rumpelstiltskin, tell me my girl is all right!"_

_The Imp lifts a brow again at this. Very few are brave enough to call him by name, though of course he knew the miller had realized his identity almost instantly. Desperation will do funny things to a man. He has seen enough desperate souls in his abnormally long life to tell that this man is at his breaking point._

"_Well, you did say 'please'," he muses aloud. "I'll give you points for that…but that wasn't part of our deal, now was it? I believe I only promised to tell you _where _the girl is, not _how _she is. Another price will have to be paid if you want to know that."_

"_I have nothing else!" the miller cries in despair. Then a thought occurs to him. "Except…"_

"_Yes?" the creature draws out the 's' until it is a hiss._

"_My daughter's ring. It also belonged to my wife."_

"_Hmmm," the creature says, affecting great disinterest. "Perhaps…the market for jewelry is not what it was, you understand. I don't really even _need _the necklace, truthfully, I just happen to know you've not much else to bargain with—"_

"_Please," the miller begs in a near-whisper._

"_Oh, all right," the Imp agrees in a put-upon tone. "I suppose it won't hurt to at least take a look at it. Then I'll decide if it's worth such…valuable information." He speaks in the tones of one bestowing a great favor._

_Before he can change his mind, the miller flees to retrieve the ring. Before he returns to present it to the Imp, he presses a kiss upon it. "I'm sorry, my love," he whispers. Whether he is speaking to his daughter or his wife, even he cannot say._

_Back outside, the Imp takes the ring and turns it over and over in his hands, studying it closely. He holds it up to examine it by the light of the moon._

"_This will do," he says finally, as if this is just an ordinary business transaction. The miller nearly collapses with relief._

_His relief turns to horror at the next words. "Your daughter is fine. She's in good health. Of course, there _is _the small matter of her being with child—"_

_His sentence is cut off as the miller springs at him with a cry of rage. All fear is gone from the man now. At the mention of his daughter—his innocent daughter!—carrying a child, all fright vanished. He is certain that Imp took his daughter for his own twisted, lecherous desires, and impregnated her with his demon spawn. Fury courses through him at the thought, overriding his fear, overriding his good sense. _

_The Imp is almost caught off guard by the action—but only almost. He throws up a barrier just in time, for the miller would have had his hands around his throat in another fraction of a second. Not that the man could have done him any serious harm, but still…The miller slams against the invisible shield with full force and topples to the ground._

"_That was a very unwise thing to do," Rumpelstiltskin says menacingly, towering over the prone man. His eyes have turned completely black, the miller notices. He is past caring. He is past caring about anything. Hopelessly, helplessly, he begins to sob._

"_Oh, God," he moans. "My child, my baby, my little girl…"_

_He wishes the creature would go ahead and kill him now, put him out of misery. In his despair, he fails to notice the conflicted expression ghosting across the Imp's face. When Rumpelstiltskin reaches out to him, he cries out and twists away._

"_Stop that sniveling," the Imp says impatiently. Then he does something the miller never expected. He pulls him up by the hand. Looking at him in confusion, the miller realizes his eyes have changed color yet again. They are now a golden-brown, very nearly human, and the expression in them is something like compassion._

_When he speaks, his voice is likewise more human. It is softer and filled with the same thing the miller can see in his eyes, that is almost like kindness. "I mean no harm to your girl," he states. "I have not touched her in the way you think. The child within her was there before I even met her."_

_Somehow, the miller believes the words. "But…how…?" he asks weakly, unable to finish the thought._

_The Imp finishes it for him. "How did she get with child?" he asks. The miller nods. "There was a young man in your village in the earlier part of the year, was there not? A stranger. A wealthy stranger. A prince, he said, from a far-off kingdom."_

_The miller recalls the young man instantly. "I never trusted that man," he whispers fiercely. "I never believed that prince story for a moment. I told my girl to keep her distance from him…"_

_Rumpelstiltskin shakes his head ruefully. "Has any daughter ever listened to her father when it came to a young man?" he asks rhetorically. "He filled her head with all sorts of pretty stories. You may not have believed his claim of royal blood, but she did. He told her she would be his princess, and someday his queen. He told her whatever he thought she wanted to hear to make her fall in love with him." He shakes his head again, the expression on his face now one of bemusement. "The sad thing is, he could have told her he was a beggar and she would have fallen in love with him anyway. The girl was ripe for romance."_

"_There are not many prospective suitors in our village," the miller admits. "The few there are were put off by her…unconventional ways. She's one of the only people in our village who knows how to read, for one thing; I taught her when she was still tiny. Many said I never should have done that, for what good does it do for a woman to fill her head with knowledge? But she was so bright, so inquisitive. To me the mistake would have been not allowing her to learn."_

_The Imp smiles, and despite the jagged, fearsome-looking teeth the miller finds the smile comforting. "She is very intelligent," he allows. "A bit naïve, perhaps, but life will cure her of that soon enough."_

"_I bought her books whenever I could spare the money," the miller continues. "I'm afraid she developed some…rather forward-thinking ideas from them. I don't necessarily think that's wrong, but she was never shy about voicing her opinions. The young men in the village never knew what to make of that, or of her."_

_Rumpelstiltskin laughs aloud. The laugh is completely different from his mad cackle. It is deep, joyful, and again, oddly human. The miller has heard that Rumpelstiltskin was once a man, who became an Imp through a deal gone wrong. He's starting to believe it could be the truth. _

"_Yes, I can imagine that too," he says. "She does have some very…progressive ideas. She's told me some of them. She believes a husband and wife should share equally in the care of the home and the raising of children. But she also believes that, if the wife has any marketable skills, she should ply her trade along with the man, so that both are contributing financially to the household."_

_The miller sighs. "Again, I believe she has a point. But I was a bit too indulgent when it came to her odd ideas. I never cautioned her that most young men of this realm are not nearly so forward-thinking."_

_This has begun to seem like a casual conversation between two men. Indeed, the miller has almost forgotten that this is the creature that is presumably holding his daughter hostage. When he sees the necklace glittering in the abnormally long fingers, however, he remembers exactly who—what—he is dealing with. "But if you didn't plant the child that is growing in my daughter, why did you take her?" he asks pleadingly. "Why are you keeping her from me?"_

_The Imp seems to be choosing his words carefully. "I did not take her," he finally replies. "Nor do I hold her against her will. She left your home intentionally, to avoid causing you shame. She knew your business would suffer when word got out that your daughter was with child and unmarried, so she chose to leave. I found her near my home, and when I heard her tale I offered her a place with me until her child is born. I made a deal with her." The miller pales visibly, and Rumpelstiltskin chuckles. "Calm yourself, man. Our deal is simply this: I will provide a home for her until her child is born, and then she may proceed with her life as she chooses. She can return to you, or she can go on to one of the realms where her modern ideas are more widely accepted. In return, she has promised me the infant."_

_Although the miller feels somewhat more comfortable with his daughter's situation, he doesn't like the thought of her child—his grandchild, after all—in the care of an Imp. "What will you do with the child?" he asks._

_Rumpelstiltskin is mildly surprised by the question. Most fathers would not have thought to ask, he knows, would have simply been grateful that the little bastard was taken off their hands and their daughter's reputation could remain unblemished. But this man is not like most. He views his daughter as more than chattel to be married off, and obviously cares for his grandchild as well, illegitimate though it may be. The Imp decides he will favor the man with the truth._

"_If I tell you, you must promise never to speak of it," he warns. The miller nods his assent. "I will find the child a home. That's what I do with the infants I take. I know there are all sorts of stories about why I make deals for newborns, but the truth of the matter is that I give them to people who can't have a child of their own for whatever reason."_

_This doesn't fit with the stories the miller has heard. He has never personally known anyone who gave up a child to Rumpelstiltskin, but he has heard rumors of what the creature does with the infants he takes. There have been whispers of sacrifice, of cannibalism, of even more unspeakable acts, but he has never heard that the Imp takes the children and gives them to the childless. As he stares into those very nearly human eyes, though, the miller knows that Rumpelstiltskin is speaking the truth. This creature, dark and twisted though he may be, still possesses a shred of humanity. The miller knows instinctively that he would not harm an innocent babe. Then, too, there is the other thing he has always heard over the years: that Rumpelstiltskin does not lie. He may not tell the whole truth, he may twist it so it is indiscernible, but he does not lie. As he gazes at the Imp that may have once been a man, the miller thinks this may be the only true thing he has ever heard about him._

_What Rumpelstiltskin does next convinces him. The creature takes something from the breast pocket of his dragon-skin jacket and presses it into the miller's hand. The miller is too surprised at the sudden contact to flinch. It flits through his mind that Rumpelstiltskin's flesh, though it is oddly colored and textured, is not cold and scaly as he would have thought. Though it is as rough and dry as he imagined, it is quite warm, and not unpleasant._

_When the miller finally looks at the object which the creature has given him, he is surprised to see it is a bit of broken looking-glass. "It's magic," the creature explains, seeming to read his thoughts. "If you whisper to it the name of the one you want to see, it will show you that person. It will show you exactly what they are doing at that moment."_

_Before he realizes it, the miller has whispered the name of his beloved daughter to the bit of glass. Instantly the glass fogs, though he was careful not to breathe on it. Then the fog clears. _

_He sees his daughter sitting before a fireplace. She sits in a rocking chair, her legs stretched out and her bare feet on a hassock. She is wearing the blue dress she wore the last time he saw her. Not surprisingly, she holds a book in her hand. As he watches, she lifts her other hand to turn a page, then continues to read. She is humming a little, rocking back and forth to the beat of the melody. He is overjoyed to see that she is alive and healthy as the Imp promised, and appears to be content as well. Certainly she is not a tormented captive._

_When the miller finally lifts his eyes again to Rumpelstiltskin, they are shining with tears. "Thank you," he whispers. He holds the bit of glass out to the creature._

_But he shakes his head. "Keep it," he says gruffly. "That bit of glass was once part of a much larger mirror. I still have the rest of the pieces; I will not miss this one." He seems to struggle with himself before blurting, "I know what it is to have your only child run from you without a word of explanation. At least you can rest assured that she did it out of love, not fear. She will return to you one day."_

_The miller is overwhelmed at such a generous gift. He gazes again at the image of his daughter within the glass. Moments pass before he thinks to look up again, to ask what the price will be for such a boon as this._

_But when he looks up, Rumpelstiltskin is gone._

"That's when I wake up," Joe finished.

The young sheriff nodded slowly, although her eyes were troubled. "It still sounds like what I said earlier," she said finally. "You wish so badly things had turned out differently that you're making it that way in your dreams. Your subconscious turned Mr. Gold into a monster on the outside, but a benevolent creature within…kind of the opposite as he is in real life." _Or is it? _she thought to herself.

Joe Miller nodded, accepting the explanation. "You're probably right," he agreed. He wondered to himself why the sheriff looked so disturbed at the recounting of his dreams. But it had been a long day, and he was weary. He was relieved that he had finally unburdened himself, but it had been far more tiring than he expected. Now that he had finally gotten everything off his chest, he wanted simply to go home and go to bed early.

But before he excused himself, there was something he needed to ask. "So what do you think, Sheriff?" he blurted before he lost his nerve. "What should I do now?"

Emma frowned thoughtfully. "I think," she said slowly, "that you need to visit Amy soon. And I think you need to tell her everything you've just told me."

This was obviously the answer he had hoped for, for he sighed with unmistakable relief. "I will," he vowed. "Not tonight, because it's getting late. But tomorrow I'll take off work for the day and go to see her." He looked at Emma with desperation plain in his eyes. "Do you think she'll understand?"

Emma didn't hesitate with her answer this time. "She'll understand," she said with certainty.

"Good," he declared. "I hope…I hope it's not too late for us."

Impulsively, the pretty blonde reached out to grasp his hand. "It isn't," she declared.

But it was. Someone had overheard their conversation.

Silently, Regina Mills stole out of the sheriff's department. She knew what she had to do now. It was really too bad, she thought with a twinge of regret. It was too bad that Amy Miller would have to be hurt further, so soon after losing the man she thought she loved. Although she knew what the girl thought of her, Regina still felt a certain fondness for her; she had been so good to Henry. But it couldn't be helped. Joe Miller was remembering now, just as Graham had. He would have to be eliminated.

She would see to it that tomorrow never came for Joseph Miller.

…

Amy was half-asleep when the knock sounded at the door of her room at the inn.

"Coming," she called groggily. She climbed out of her warm bed with reluctance and padded across the threadbare Oriental rug to answer the knock.

Out of it as she was, for a moment she wasn't surprised or displeased to see Mr. Gold. She had always been confused when woken suddenly; she thought for a few seconds that the past month had been a bad dream, and she was still at Mr. Gold's house, and he was checking in on her before he left for work, as was his habit.

Thoroughly disoriented, she opened her mouth to say "Morning, Mr. Gold." Then, all of a sudden, her bewilderment fled. She knew instantly where she was, and that her ex-employer/almost-lover should _not _be here, at Granny's Bed and Breakfast, at—she glanced at the clock—11:32 PM.

Instead of her former customary greeting, she said sharply, "What are you doing here?"

He fidgeted a bit, something she had never seen him do before. "Amy," he said uncomfortably. "I know you asked me not to…bother you, but I thought you would want to know."

She was wide awake now. "Know what?" she almost snapped.

Gold wet his lips nervously. "It's your father, dear," he said finally. "He…collapsed tonight. He's in the hospital."

Amy's blood turned to ice water. "Oh my God," she whispered. Then a thought occurred to her. "Is this one of your tricks?" she demanded.

Mr. Gold slumped a bit at the ire in her voice. "I'm afraid not," he said quietly. "I suspected you might think as much, however. I brought someone with me who will assure you this is no trick."

He moved aside. Emma Swan stepped into the doorway.

"Emma…" Amy said questioningly. The blonde shut her eyes at the unspoken plea in the girl's voice.

"It's true, Amy," she said gently. "Your father is in the ICU at Storybrooke General. He had a massive heart attack earlier this evening." She paused for a moment before adding, even more gently, "It doesn't look like he's going to make it."

Amy simply gaped at her for a moment. Any time now, the sheriff thought, the tears would come. She moved to take Amy into her arms.

Instead, Amy whirled around. For a split second, both Emma and Mr. Gold thought she was returning to bed, choosing to ignore the news or dismiss it as a nightmare. Instead, the girl went to the tiny closet beside the bed. Before they could ask what she was doing, she had pulled out a coat and a pair of sneakers.

"Take me to him," she requested calmly.

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," Emma began to say. The words died in her throat as she looked at Amy's face. The young woman wasn't crying, but her eyes were too wide, her face too pale and still. If she refused, Emma realized, the girl would start screaming like a banshee, and they would end up taking her to the hospital anyway. So instead she said, simply, "OK."

"Sheriff Swan," Gold whispered. "Are you sure…?"

Amy froze in the act of slipping on her shoes to stare at him. "_I'm _sure," she said. Taking a good look at her face, he too realized it would be best not to refuse her. At least, he thought to himself as she finished putting on her shoes and shrugged on her coat, she would be in the best possible place if something were to go wrong.

They took the cruiser. The short ride to the hospital seemed to take an eternity. Hoping to lighten the heavy mood a bit, Emma turned on the radio.

"All this thing gets is the oldies station," she announced, painfully aware of her too-bright voice. It was the first time any of them had spoken since they got into the car. "I hope that's OK with you guys."

Gold made a small sound she took as assent. From the backseat Amy said flatly, "The oldies station is the only one that comes in anywhere in Storybrooke." After a small pause she added, "I like it, though."

Silence fell among them again. The only sound in the cruiser was "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets. Presently the fifties party tune ended and a Roy Orbison song Emma had always liked replaced it.

Apparently it was a favorite of Amy's as well. _"A candy-colored clown they call the Sandman," _she sang softly along with the radio, _"tiptoes through my room every night. Just to sprinkle stardust and a whisper, 'Go to sleep, everything is all right'."_ But all three of the people in the car knew that everything was most assuredly not all right, and might never be again.

"_I close my eyes," _Amy continued along with the radio, _"and I drift away. Into the magic night, I softly say, a silent prayer, like dreamers do, then I fall asleep to dream, my dreams of you._

"_In dreams, I walk with you. In dreams, I talk to you. In dreams you're mine, all of the time. We're together in dreams, in dreams…"_

She was singing to Gold, Emma recognized. It appeared that he realized it as well; though his posture was ramrod straight as always and his expression as inscrutable as ever, she saw the quick working in his throat as the lyrics hit home. It was the perfect song for them, she thought.

"_But just before the dawn,"_ Amy continued along with the hauntingly beautiful tenor of the Texan who had died years before she was born, _"I wake to find you gone. I can't help it, I can't help it, if I cry. I remember that you said good-bye. It's too bad that all these things can only happen in my dreams. Only in dreams, in beautiful dreams."_

While Amy sang the last bit of the song, Emma noticed that Gold was paying close attention to the lyrics. At "'I remember that you said good-bye,'" he closed his eyes briefly. Once again, she had the uncomfortable thought that she had done the wrong thing by telling Amy about the "adoptions" Gold had brokered in the past. Though she still believed that had been his intention for Amy's baby in the beginning, she was increasingly certain he had changed his mind as he grew to know her…and just maybe, to love her. What was more, she believed that Regina's "spilling the beans" had been no case of drunken loose lips. Watching the two of them as the beautiful heartbreaking song played, Emma suspected that Regina, too, had sensed the feelings that were growing between the young girl and the pawnbroker…and had sought to destroy them.

The song ended as they pulled into the parking lot of Storybrooke General Hospital. "And now here's Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs with 'Little Red Riding Hood'," the deejay announced cheerfully, "on Storybrooke's station for the oldies, WOAT!"

Emma turned the car off. "We're here," she said unnecessarily. Before she had the words out, Amy had opened the back door of the cruiser and was flying toward to the double doors of the hospital's main entrance. For a girl nearly eight months pregnant she could move pretty fast, Emma observed.

By the time Emma and Mr. Gold caught up with her, Amy was at the nurses' station in the ICU. "I want to see my father," she was announcing to the lone nurse on duty. "Joseph Miller. Where is he?"

The nurse, who Emma noticed bore a striking resemblance to Nurse Ratched, frowned. "I'm sorry, visiting hours are over," she said crisply.

Amy clearly didn't care for this answer. "I want to see my father!" she demanded. Her voice rose in pitch. Gold recognized that tone; she was going to work herself into a right frenzy if she was denied.

"Miss Kesey," he said smoothly, coming up beside Amy. "The young lady wishes to see her father. He's in a private room; there's no chance of her disturbing the other patients. What can it hurt to bend the rules just this one time?"

The nurse took in Amy's condition. She recalled the grim prognosis for the insurance salesman who had come in earlier that night. Most of all, she recognized exactly who was more or less demanding that she allow the girl to see her father. It was well known among the hospital staff that Mr. Gold's donations made up the bulk of their funding. If he were to be displeased for any reason, those donations would undoubtedly stop.

Nurse Kesey was a hard woman, but not a stupid one. She knew very well on which side her bread was buttered. "He's right through there," she said, indicating the room directly opposite the nurses' station. Tossing a hurried thank you over her shoulder, Amy turned and fairly ran to the room.

As she entered the private room, her run slowed to a trudge. Until she laid eyes on her father, Amy had clung to some small hope that this had all been some elaborate hoax to get her into Mr. Gold's clutches again. But once she saw Joe Miller, that hope flickered and died.

He looked so small in the hospital bed. Though he had always been a tall man, broad-shouldered and solidly built, he seemed to have shrunk. He was hooked to what seemed hundreds of machines; myriad wires and tubes snaked out of each arm. His eyes were closed and he was deathly pale. For a moment, Amy feared he was already dead. Behind her, Emma Swan thought the same thing. She had to stifle a gasp at the sight; the change in the man she had seen just a few hours earlier and the blasted ruin in the hospital bed was immediate and profound. If she hadn't known better, she would have sworn it was a different man.

Then the sunken eyes fluttered open. They were the same hazel of the man Emma had spoken with earlier, and the man with whom Amy had lived nearly all of her life.

This small motion galvanized Amy into action. "Daddy," she breathed, moving quickly to the man's bedside. Tenderly, she took one of the corpse-like hands into her own.

He tried to speak. Only a strangled croak came out. Obviously frustrated, he tried again. This time he was successful. "Baby," he managed.

"I'm here," Amy said soothingly. "I'm here, Daddy." She sat in the chair at his bedside, still holding his one hand in both of hers.

With an effort he rolled his head to face her. "Pretty girl," he gasped. "My…pretty girl."

"Of course," Amy said, laughing lightly though tears shone in her eyes. "I take after you, you know."

"No…" The word was almost a sigh. "You're…her made over. I…hated that. Hated seeing what I'd lost, every time I looked at you. Hated it…and loved you for it."

This little speech seemed to exhaust him. He closed his eyes as his head rolled to the side. Amy never let go of his hand. At last, at long last, she knew the truth. He had finally said "I love you" in the only way he was now able to.

Softly, not even aware she was doing so, Amy began to sing again. She knew the song was a favorite of her father's. He had idolized Elvis in his younger years, identifying with the dirt-poor Mississippi boy who had grown up to be a star. Her mother had loved the King, too. Granny had told her once that this song had been the first dance at their wedding. She didn't realize she still remembered all the words to it, but they flowed freely as she grasped her dying father's hand.

"_Love me tender,_

_Love me sweet,_

_Never let me go._

_You have made my life complete,_

_And I love you so._

_Love me tender,_

_Love me true,_

_All my dreams fulfilled._

_For my darlin', I love you,_

_And I always will."_

Though the tears had finally spilled from her eyes and trickled down her cheeks, her voice was strong. Hovering in the doorway of the room, Emma felt tears sliding down her own cheeks. She didn't bother to wipe them away.

"_Love me tender,_

_Love me long,_

_Take me to your heart._

_For it's there that I belong,_

_And we'll never part._

_Love me tender,_

_Love me true,_

_All my dreams fulfilled._

_For my darlin', I love you,_

_And I always will."_

A hand gently touched Emma's elbow. She turned to see Mr. Gold standing beside her. Somehow she wasn't surprised to see that his own dark eyes were oddly shiny.

"Perhaps we should give them some privacy," the pawnbroker murmured.

Emma nodded and moved to leave. The exit of the sheriff and the pawnbroker was unnoticed by both the man in the bed and the girl at his side.

"_Love me tender,_

_Love me dear,_

_Tell me you are mine._

_I'll be yours through all the years,_

_Till the end of time._

_Love me tender,_

_Love me true,_

_All my dreams fulfilled._

_For my darlin', I love you,_

_And I always will."_

Emma and Mr. Gold sat in the ICU's small waiting area. Mr. Gold had fetched coffee for the two of them, but they barely touched it. They sat silently, waiting for Amy to come to them with the inevitable news.

After what seemed to be eons, but was really less than an hour, Amy appeared in the doorway of the waiting area. Tear tracks streaked her face, but her eyes were dry.

"He's gone," she said quietly.

Emma jumped up. Though she was not by nature a physically demonstrative person, it seemed perfectly natural to take the young pregnant woman in her arms. Amy melted into the embrace. Her shoulders shook as she buried her face in the blonde's shoulder.

Watching them, Gold felt a twinge of envy. How he longed to be the one holding Amy at this moment. He could imagine with perfect clarity the way she would feel in his arms, how her face would fit perfectly in the hollow of his own shoulder. He could almost _feel _her there, with the hard mound of the baby between them. But she wanted none of him, not now and probably never again. For the first time, he allowed himself to comprehend that she had good reason.

Once she had finally left the Sheriff's arms, she finally deigned to look at him. Her face and voice were no longer cold, as they had been before, but neither were they warm. Rather, both were strangely matter-of-fact.

"Why are you here?" she asked. He strived to gauge her tone—was it accusatory? Caring? Suspicious?—but he could discern nothing but simple curiosity.

It was Emma who answered. "Mr. Gold was the one who found your father collapsed in his insurance office."

At this revelation Amy's eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth to fire off another question. This one, Gold knew painfully, would be far more direct. He could almost hear her words: "Did you kill my father?" It was ridiculous, he knew. He certainly hadn't caused Joe Miller's heart attack, and in fact had done everything in his power to help the man. So why did he feel so guilty under that flat blue gaze?

Before she could ask the question that would destroy him, however, Emma spoke again. "Your dad called Mr. Gold, asked him to meet with him at his office. When Mr. Gold arrived, your father had already had the heart attack. He called 911. He did CPR until the paramedics got there. He did everything he could to save him, but the damage was too severe."

It was the truth, but Gold couldn't shake the feeling that the young sheriff was lying for him. Perhaps it was because he hadn't told the woman the whole truth. As was his wont, he had left out certain things. He had left out the promise he'd made to Joe Miller just before the paramedics swarmed into the office. He'd also left out the nonsensical babbling Miller had been doing when he arrived at the office. _But was it really nonsensical babbling? _his inner voice spoke up.

None of that mattered right now, though. The only thing that mattered was that Amy was looking at him now with a cautious sort of gratitude. It was the kindest look she'd given him all night.

"You tried to save my father?" she asked.

Gold tried to reply, but found he was unable. He simply nodded.

Amy gazed at him searchingly. He almost squirmed under the blue orbs. She must have satisfied herself that he was telling the truth, though, for she nodded slightly. "Yes, I think you did," she said. "In any case, you kept him alive until the ambulance got there. If you hadn't, I might not have been able to say good-bye. Thank you for that, at least."

The words were civil, conciliatory almost. But her voice was still oddly flat. Any love she had ever felt for him, he understood with an ache in his heart, was long gone. With effort, he tore his eyes away from hers. It was unfortunate; had he not done so, he would have seen the uncertainty in those beautiful gray-blue eyes, the dawning comprehension that maybe, just maybe, he hadn't been lying when he told her she was different from all the other desperate souls he had made deals with over the years.

She turned then to Emma. "I'm very tired." she said simply. "I'd like to go home now."

Home, Gold thought. He wished mightily that it was his home to which she referred, but knew it wasn't.

Emma nodded. "I'll take you back to the inn," she said quietly.

"But there are things I need to do here first, aren't there?" Amy asked. "I need to…oh, sign papers, I guess. Make arrangements for the funeral."

Finally, he found the strength to speak. "I'll take care of that," he told the two women.

"Can you do that?" Emma asked. "I'm pretty sure it has to be the next of kin who signs the paperwork."

She was right, of course, but she'd forgotten to take into account the power Gold had in this town. "I'll do what I can," he says simply. "If there's anything that absolutely requires Amy's signature, I'll arrange for it to be signed at a later time. I don't expect that will be a problem." He addressed his next words to Amy. "Don't worry about the funeral, dear. Your father was an insurance salesman; they're notorious for planning out those things far in advance. I know he had a will as well as an advance directive. Most likely he also outlined his wishes for a funeral."

Amy simply nodded at this. She'd been too quiet since coming to inform them of Joe's death, Gold thought. He had expected floods of hysterical tears, not this eerie calm. It was too much like what had happened after Graham's memorial service. He hoped that didn't mean she was going into shock.

Looking into her eyes, though, he didn't believe that was the case. Rather, he thought, she seemed at peace. She was sad about her father's death, undoubtedly. But she had had a chance to say good-bye. They'd had a chance to say the things they'd never been able to say to each other. Although he was gone, he had left her with the knowledge she had sought all her life: that he truly did love her. Knowing this, she would be able to channel her inner strength and move on with her life. His girl, his strong, brave, beautiful girl; Gold had never been more proud of her than he was at that moment. If only he could tell her so.

"Thank you, Mr. Gold," she said almost inaudibly. "Thank you…for everything."

"Amy," he said with perfect honesty, "I wish I'd never had to do any of it." And he did. Given the opportunity to change the events of this horrible night, he knew he would do so without hesitation, without a thought to the cost. A monster could love, too, he thought. And though Amy deserved a far better man than he, he knew not even a perfect man could love her any more than he did. He loved his girl in a way he had never thought possible: selflessly, unconditionally. He would do everything in his power to see that she had the life she deserved. If that meant letting her go, that was the price he would pay.

The sheriff's thoughts were running on an entirely different track. She saw the way Amy had slowly warmed to Mr. Gold again during this long and terrible night. Amy was capable of great anger, Emma knew, but she had learned on this night that the young woman was also capable of forgiveness. Maybe, the blonde thought, the loss of her father would bring her and Mr. Gold together again. She found herself hoping this would be so, hoping that the unlikely couple would find a way to put the past behind them and build a future together. If things were to work out for them, it would almost be as though her father had given her one last gift.

That would all come later, though, if it came at all. Right now Amy needed rest more than anything else. Gently Emma took the girl's arm. "I'll take you back now," she told her. She turned to the pawnbroker. "I'll come back for you once I get Amy home."

Docile as a child, Amy allowed the sheriff to lead her down the hallway, back toward the hospital entrance and the parking lot beyond. Gold watched them go before turning to make his way to the nurses' station. There was a lot to be done, even though Joe Miller had indeed planned everything in advance as best he could. He had known somehow, Gold thought. Even before the invisible fist closed around his heart, the man had sensed that his time was short. Why else would he have called Gold to his office this evening? Why else would he have gotten Gold to make the promise he had made—a promise he would have no trouble keeping, since it fit so perfectly with what he had already planned to do?

As he spoke with Nurse Kesey about the steps that had to be taken now, he half-expected the mayor to show up. It was her way. After Graham's death, she had attempted to take charge almost immediately. It wouldn't surprise him if she attempted the same thing now. He would enjoy thwarting her this time almost as much as he had enjoyed doing so upon the former Sheriff's passing. But the woman never came.

She knew, though, Gold thought as he settled down to wade through the necessary red tape. Though he couldn't say how, he knew that Regina Mills was entirely aware of Joe Miller's demise. Inexplicably, he also knew that she had had a hand in this death as well. Two citizens of Storybrooke now had met their fates just as they seemed to be within reach of happiness. It was too much of a coincidence.

He knew he couldn't prove it. Joe Miller's autopsy would reveal a heart attack, just as Graham's had. The cause of death would be noted as natural causes, just as in Graham's case. Only Mr. Gold knew there had been nothing "natural" about the death of either man. What he didn't know was how, or why. Yet. But he would. Before much more time passed, the pawnbroker thought, he would know everything there was to know.

He only hoped he could find some way to protect Amy before he himself was destroyed.

**And The Chapter That Really Would Not Die is finished. I had to rewrite it several times before I was satisfied. Hope everyone likes it. I left a few questions unanswered: what was the promise Mr. Gold made to Amy's father? What, exactly, was the "nonsense" Amy' father was babbling? Could it have to do with a certain Evil Queen-turned-Mayor? In time, all shall be revealed. **

**As I mentioned in a previous chapter, at first I had Joe Miller pegged as a one-dimensional d-bag. I even thought he and Regina might join forces to keep Amy and Mr. Gold apart. But as the story progressed, I realized that Amy's dad wasn't a bad man so much as a bitter, angry one, made that way by the death of his dreams and the person he loved. Not unlike a certain pawnbroker we know and love. I knew early on that he would die, but I thought it would be a traditional villain's death. I certainly never expected to be fighting back tears as I wrote his death scene.**

**I know a lot of my readers and reviewers have been missing the flashbacks to the fairy-tale world, so I put one in this chapter. Just so we're clear, Joe's dreams were actually buried memories of his previous life as the miller. By the time he realized this, though, it was too late. As Mr. Gold suspects, the "nonsense" wasn't really nonsense at all. Never fear, dearies, there are more flashbacks to come, heavy on the Amy-Rumple. All in good time.**

**CYA time: I don't own anything except my OCs. Walt Disney and Co. owns the show. The songs I used in this chapter, "In Dreams" and "Love Me Tender", are the property of the late Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley. (BTW, a YouTube poster gave me the idea to use "Love Me Tender". He/she mentioned that it was sung at their father's bedside as he passed away. I'd been trying to think of a song for Amy to sing to her father, and when I read that I decided it was the perfect one.)**

**Mad love to my readers and reviewers. I can't believe how many favorites I've gotten! You guys rock. I'm currently in love with a couple of other fanfics on this site; in addition to the ones I mentioned a few chapters ago, I'm digging "Hands On Me" by Awesome Fat Kitty (my new favorite pen name as well) and "Time Around" by RhineGold. Also the entire opus of Twyla-Mercedes. Chick has yet to write a Rumple story that's less than awesome. **

**Almost forgot to mention: I took a page from the show's book and scattered a few Easter eggs in this chapter. One is a fairly obvious "Skin Deep" reference. The others are fairly obscure. Bonus points to anyone who gets the shout-out to Stephen King in particular.**

**Sweet dreams!**


	13. Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

As it turned out, Joe Miller had indeed left instructions regarding his funeral. He had requested a simple graveside service, and Amy decided to honor his wishes. So it was that two days after his death, her father was laid to rest in the Storybrooke cemetery beside her mother.

Only a handful of people attended the service. Granny, Ruby, and Ashley, of course, sat in the front row with Amy, surrounding her protectively. Emma was there as well, though Mary Margaret sent her regrets, because she had been unable to find anyone to sub for her class. But Archie Hopper and Marco came, as did Doc and Dr. Whale. Mayor Mills came with Henry; he had threatened to skip school and come anyway if she didn't bring him, and the mayor knew he would do so. It was easier just to give in to him. She kept him as far as possible from Emma, however.

And Mr. Gold was there. He sat toward the back of the gathering with Melissa Vincent, who had been Joe's attorney. Emma had been concerned when the pawnbroker showed up, fearing a showdown between him and Amy's trio of self-appointed bodyguards. She needn't have worried; he merely nodded to Amy before taking his place in the back. Granny glared at him murderously, but he seemed not to notice.

The brief service was conducted by Reverend Perrault from the Congregational church in town, though Joe and Amy had rarely attended services through the years. Afterward, Amy could never remember a word of the good reverend's funeral service. Her attention was riveted on the gleaming gray metal casket before her, topped with a modest spray of red roses. Distantly she could hear birds chirping, an odd sound for February in Maine. She fancied they were saying to each other, _Joe Miller is dead. Amy lost her father—twice._

She had never expected that her father's death would hurt so much. Unlike most nineteen-year-olds, she had known it would happen one day. She'd already lost one parent, after all. But she had never thought it would affect her as deeply as it had. Perhaps it was because it had been so sudden. Or perhaps it was because he died just when he was on the verge of trying to mend their relationship. That knowledge was painful, but in a strange way it also made his death easier to bear. In their own way, Amy thought, they _had _been able to reconcile.

But now he was gone. Though Amy was grateful they'd had their deathbed reconciliation, she wished there had been time for more. She wished he'd been able to tell her the other things he'd never told her—about his childhood, about his relationship with her mother. Emma had filled her in on their long conversation the night before he died. She now understood what had made her father the way he had been. She was glad that she now knew the details of his life that she'd never known before, but she wished she'd heard them from him.

Most of all, she wished he had been able to be there for the birth of her baby. Her gut told her that the child would have been what truly brought them together. With the birth of his grandchild, Joe would have seen an opportunity to atone for his mistakes as a father. Though she couldn't say just how she knew this, she knew it nonetheless. Seeing him as a grandfather would have shown her the way he'd planned to be as a father—the way he _would _have been, if her birth hadn't resulted in her mother's death. That opportunity was gone now, and Amy couldn't help but feel as if it had been stolen from her somehow. She knew it was silly, but she wanted someone to blame for her father's death. No, it was more than that. She knew, in that inexplicable way she sometimes knew things, that someone _had _been responsible for her father's death.

But whoever that someone had been, it hadn't been Mr. Gold. That was another piece of unfounded, yet inarguable knowledge she'd found within herself in the days after her father's death. It wasn't only what she'd been told about Mr. Gold trying to save his life, calling the ambulance and doing CPR. She believed that, but there was more to it. She'd seen the look in Mr. Gold's eyes that night. He had genuinely felt pain for her. He had hurt for her. If he could have done something to prevent Joe's death, Amy believed, he would have. As it was, he had done all he could to make things easier for her in the aftermath. She'd had to do very little as far as paperwork and planning. The few papers requiring her signature had been brought to her at the inn, just as he'd promised. The funeral had practically arranged itself—she knew most of that was probably Joe's own preplanning, but it had been the pawnbroker who had contacted the minister and the florist and the other necessary businesses. Mr. Gold had even arranged for the Home Ec class at the high school to take over running the diner for a few days, so Amy could have her whole surrogate family with her rather than just one member at a time.

Of course, he hadn't told her any of this. Other than actually informing her of her father's collapse, he had kept his distance as she had asked. She had learned about his actions through Emma and Ruby. Oddly enough, they were the only two of her friends who didn't seem to flat-out loathe the man. At different times she had asked them why this was so. Both had given her a similar answer: shady as he was, each of them sensed that his feelings for Amy were real.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized this was probably true. Though her soul still shrank from the thought that he'd taken her in intending to sell her baby, she now wondered if perhaps she'd been too hasty in leaving his home. She'd told him she wanted his side of the story—but had she really given him a chance to tell it? It seemed to her, as she went over and over their conversation that last night, that there had been more he'd wanted to say, had been trying to say. _You were, _she recalled him saying when she'd told him she thought she'd been special to him. _You are. _And later, _please. I want you to understand._

She would never fully understand his motivations, she realized. But she should have given him the chance to explain them. Perhaps she would have found a little understanding, enough for them to…to what?

She didn't know. But she remembered so clearly the look in his eyes when he'd said, _What happened that night…it wasn't part of any plan. _Though he had skewed the truth so many times with her, in that one instance at least Amy was sure he had been perfectly honest. Through her own recollections and what Emma had told her, she had come to believe that Mr. Gold's plans for her had changed over time. Even if he'd taken her in originally with less-than-honorable intentions, she knew he had come to care for her. It was painfully obvious, in retrospect, just how much he had come to care. True, some of the things he'd done for her could be dismissed as attempts to gain her trust…but so many of them couldn't. The way he'd noticed little things about her, such as her favorite color being blue and her love of Boston cream pie. The way he'd genuinely tried to share her interests, even those that didn't coincide with his own. The little Christmas tree he had brought her. The way he'd held her and comforted her when Graham died. Even the way he'd tried to warn her away after their episode of near-lovemaking. None of these things could be dismissed as simple devious machinations.

Amy was so lost in her own thoughts that at first she didn't feel Granny's hand on her arm. Finally she realized that the older woman was trying to get her attention.

"It's over, honey," Granny whispered when Amy's gaze finally focused on her own.

She felt a brief wave of shame at this. She'd just spent her father's funeral thinking about her feelings for another man. What kind of daughter did that? A voice came into her head then, however, a voice that sounded a lot like that of the man they were laying to rest. _It's all right, baby, _the voice whispered. _I'm gone, but you're not. It's too late for me, but not for you. Don't be like me…don't spend the rest of your life thinking about what might have been. If you think there's a chance to work things out with Gold, go for it._

Though she wasn't sure if the words were a product of her own guilty mind or something more esoteric, Amy was comforted by them anyway. She would do that, she decided as they made their way across the cemetery to the waiting funeral-home limousine. Once things settled down some, she would call Mr. Gold. She would ask him to meet with her somewhere. The inn or the diner probably wouldn't be good choices, but maybe the coffee place near his pawnshop…neutral ground, as it were. She would ask him again for his side of the story, and she would listen, really listen this time. When she'd heard what he had to say…well, she'd go from there.

With this resolution, Amy felt lighter somehow. Head high, she walked to the limo. There wouldn't be an official gathering after the funeral, per Joe's wishes. But she, Ruby, Ashley and Granny would go back to the inn. Granny had made several pies and had started the coffeepot just before they left. She looked forward to hanging out with her closest friends, relaxing and eating pie and just being together. Maybe Emma would join them. She hoped so. She'd become increasingly close to the new sheriff over the past month, and in the few days since her father's death she had come to consider the woman as one of her close friends.

Just as she reached the limo, another hand closed around her arm. Startled, she looked up to see Ms. Vincent.

Her father's lawyer was a pretty blonde about the same age as Regina Mills. Like the mayor, Ms. Vincent had held her current position for as long as Amy could remember. This was another oddity that Amy hadn't yet perceived—how could a woman only fifteen years her senior have been a fully fledged lawyer for the past two decades?—but it had just occurred to Mr. Gold, standing at a respectful distance that was still close enough to hear everything that was said. Amy didn't actively dislike the woman, who was as lovely and elegant as her contemporary the mayor, albeit in a different way. As a small child, Amy remembered envying the lawyer's hair. The riotous mane of platinum curls was at odds with the rest of her polished exterior somewhat, but the overall effect worked. Still, though she didn't dislike the woman, she had never fully trusted her either. Something about her made her think of Regina.

"Amy," Ms. Vincent said with a smile that seemed just a trifle false to the young woman. _That _was what had always made her wary of the woman, Amy realized. Like Mayor Mills, Melissa Vincent's smile never quite managed to reach her eyes. "I hate to accost you like this, but I wanted to speak to you before you left. I'd like to express my condolences."

"Thank you," Amy replied, polite but a little bewildered.

"How are you holding up?" Ms. Vincent asked. For just a moment there was a flash of authentic concern in the woman's eyes, but it vanished so quickly Amy thought she must have imagined it.

"I'm doing OK," Amy said. She wondered what the woman was getting at. She knew Ms. Vincent well enough to know that the woman hadn't simply wanted to inquire after her welfare.

"Good, good," Ms. Vincent responded just a little too heartily. "Listen, honey, I know this isn't really the time, but I wanted to tell you that we need to set up a meeting sometime soon. We need to go over your father's will."

So that was what it was. "All right," Amy agreed. Though it really wasn't the time to discuss such matters, she supposed it was something she might as well have over and done with. "When would be a good time?"

"Tomorrow afternoon? My office?" Ms. Vincent suggested.

Amy nodded. "That will be fine," she said. Briefly, she wondered why this seemed to be such an urgent matter for the lawyer. She couldn't imagine that the will would contain all that much. Her father's living as an insurance salesman had been adequate at best, she knew. He couldn't have had that much to leave behind. And who was to say that he'd left it to her in any case? He could just as easily have left it to some charity. Probably had, actually. After all, they'd been estranged for some time before he died. The lawyer probably just wanted to tie up loose ends so she'd be free to concentrate on her more lucrative clients, Amy reasoned.

Ms. Vincent's reaction seemed to indicate as much. "Great," she said brightly. "Tomorrow afternoon, then. Is three o'clock all right for you?"

"Fine," Amy repeated. Ruby, Ashley and Granny were huddled by the limousine, she noticed. They were obviously longing to get it out of the cold, but they weren't going to do so until she got in first. "Ms. Vincent—"

"Oh, please, honey," the blonde interrupted. "Call me Melissa. 'Ms. Vincent' was my mother."

Amy smiled. She could tell even as it spread across her face that it was as false as the lawyer's. "Melissa, then," she said equably. "I need to…my friends are…"

Melissa Vincent finally acknowledged the small group waiting patiently by the limo. "Oh, of course," she said quickly. "Go on and join your…friends." Amy thought she caught a hint of distaste on the last word. Her blue eyes narrowed slightly.

As if realizing her faux pas, Ms. Vincent's smile grew even brighter. "I'm sure you want to be with them right now," she said in an understanding tone. "I won't keep you any longer. I'll be expecting you tomorrow at three."

…

A little over twenty-four hours later, Amy was sitting in the lawyer's office. Though she'd never experienced the phenomenon, she thought she might be going into shock.

According to Ms. Vincent, her father's estate was valued at approximately two and a half million dollars. And he had left every bit of it to Amy.

"I don't understand," she said finally, when she was finally able to speak again. "How…how can that be? I mean, he was an _insurance salesman_. We were always comfortable financially, but we never had that kind of money."

Ms. Vincent smiled. "It's not so surprising, really," she told the young woman. "Like you said, your father was an insurance salesman. As such, he was able to take out multiple life insurance policies. He named you as the sole beneficiary on every one of them. Since he'd been paying on all of them, and since his death has been judged to be natural causes, they're all going to pay off. Of course, he also left some debt, mainly on the house and vehicles. But those amounts are negligible. Once the house and cars are sold, what remains after the debts are paid off will be added to the balance of the estate." Her smile faded. "There is one thing, however."

Of course there was. She should have known. "What's that?" she asked. It was probably something to do with taxes, she thought. Of course Uncle Sam would want his share of the spoils.

Melissa Vincent shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Your father's will names Mr. Gold as the executor," she announced. "The money from the insurance policies is to go into a trust fund. It's to be released to you at Mr. Gold's discretion until you reach the age of twenty-five, at which time the entire balance of the trust fund will become available to you."

That was not what Amy had expected to hear. "Mr.…Gold?' she repeated blankly.

"Yes, honey," the lawyer replied. "Mr. Gold has the option to release the balance of the trust fund to you now, or as soon as the checks come in. He also has the option to arrange a yearly income from the fund for you until you reach twenty-five, or"—her eyes darkened—"he can withhold the contents of the fund from you until the same time."

"And what has he decided?" Amy asked in a near-whisper. Her head was spinning. If she was going to come into a large inheritance in five years' time, that would kill any chance she had of receiving assistance from the state to care for her baby. That also left five years in which she would have to try to raise a child with no money. Even if Mr. Gold truly cared about her, would he be able to resist this opportunity to keep her under his thumb? Would he use this to try to force her to give up the baby? If he did that, would she have any choice?

"I don't know," Ms. Vincent said in as comforting a tone as she could manage. "He hasn't informed me of his decision yet. He told me he would do so today, after I went over this with you." She paused. "He also requested that you be present when he announced his decision. He's actually in the lobby right now. I'm to send for him as soon as I've gone over the will with you." That concern flashed in her eyes again. "I know you two have had a…disagreement of some sort. Would you feel more comfortable having Sheriff Swan present when he announces the decision? Or perhaps Mrs. Woods? Or even Dr. Hopper…he's just in the next building, I'm sure he'd be glad to come and…be with you."

So the lawyer had the same doubts as she. Amy was so confused. Why would her father have done this to her? Why would he have made the man who had wanted to sell her baby the executor of his estate? Had Mr. Gold coerced him into it somehow, as he lay dying? But if that had been the case, why had Mr. Gold attempted to save his life? If it was part of some devious plan, it would have been much easier to let him die on the spot. She didn't know what to think. She wanted to believe the best of her father and the man she thought she might still love, but it was so hard with all of their past actions. Not just against her, but so many others.

Well, there was only one way to find out the truth. "No, that's all right," Amy said. "I don't need anyone with me. I want to know what his decision is."

Melissa Vincent nodded slowly, though her eyes were full of misgivings. She spoke into the intercom. "Brianna, please send in Mr. Gold."

She heard the measured _thump…thump…thump _of his cane as he approached the door. She remembered when she had welcomed that sound, knowing it meant that he was home for the evening and coming to hang out with her. Now it filled her with a feeling that was close to, but not quite, dread.

Mr. Gold entered the room. Amy couldn't help noticing he was wearing her favorite of his suits—the black one with faint red pinstripes, with a black dress shirt and red tie. Something about that black-and-red combo just seemed…_familiar_ to her somehow. Those were definitely his colors, she thought.

His face was somber. "Good afternoon, Amy," he greeted her, his tone formal.

"Hello, Mr. Gold," she replied with equal gravity.

"How are you doing?" he asked, his eyes sweeping over her. They rested for a moment on her midsection, and a look she couldn't read passed briefly over his face before he resumed his usual inscrutable expression. Was he remembering how he had trailed his lips over her stomach that night? She flushed slightly at the unbidden thought.

"Fine," she managed to reply, hoping he didn't notice the red creeping steadily up her neck. She knew it was a futile hope, though; he had always noticed it before.

He _did _notice, and it was with a monumental effort he kept the smirk from his lips. So, she remembered the night he had touched with such passion the very area he now stared at. The thought of their encounter unnerved her as much as it did him. He hoped it was for the same reasons.

But he had to play the businessman now, not the former almost-lover. "I assume Ms. Vincent has apprised you of the situation," he said briskly. Amy nodded. "I think you should know that your father named me the executor of his estate…quite recently. The evening before…" He trailed off, knowing she would comprehend what he left unsaid.

And she did. Her father had changed his will right before he died, perhaps _as _he was dying. Amy's confusion grew. He had known what had happened between her and Mr. Gold. Yet he had still named Mr. Gold the executor. Why? Why had he put the man who had planning to more or less steal her unborn child in charge of the one thing that might have allowed her to keep the child?

"I also think you should know that I discussed the disposition of his estate with him shortly before he…passed. He was quite clear in his wishes, and I intend to abide by them."

At these words, Amy slumped in her chair a bit. A casual observer wouldn't have noticed, but it wasn't lost on the sharp-eyed lawyer or the equally astute pawnbroker.

She was fucked, she thought despondently. Her father had managed to do one last cruel thing to her from beyond the grave. _Of course _he had wanted Mr. Gold to keep the money from her until it was too late. He had wanted her to be stuck between a rock and a hard place, unable to receive any sort of welfare benefits but unable to access any of the small fortune he had bequeathed her in time to help her keep her baby. For some reason she couldn't fathom, her father had wanted her to have no choice but to give up her baby. But it made no sense. She recalled his loving words on his deathbed, the tenderness in his eyes when he had looked at her for the last time. He couldn't have been faking that. Why, then, had he done something that he had to know would hurt her so deeply? Was it possible he thought he had been acting for her own good?

So lost was she in her pain and confusion that she failed to listen to Mr. Gold's decision about the trust fund. What was the point, anyway? she thought dejectedly. She knew what his decision was, had known since she found out he'd been named executor. Well, she decided, he still wasn't getting his hands on her baby. Even if she wasn't going to be able to keep her after all, she would somehow see to it that he had no part in the adoption. Maybe Dr. Hopper would be able to help her. She would have to go see him as soon as this was over. She had only a few weeks to go now; time was of the essence.

Ms. Vincent was speaking now. Though she really didn't give a good goddamn what the lawyer had to say at this point, Amy forced herself to listen to the woman.

"So if you'll just sign these papers, honey, the first deposit will be made in your account as soon as possible," the woman chirped…yes, chirped. She was quite cheerful all of a sudden. Had she been in on the whole thing, too? But she had said something about a deposit…

Something wasn't adding up. "Wait, what?" was all Amy could think to say.

"You need to sign the papers, sweetie," Ms. Vincent said patiently, "so the first payment can go into your bank account when the funds are available."

Amy knew she probably sounded like a moron, but it couldn't be helped. "Payment?"

Mr. Gold's deep, dark eyes found her own and held them. "Your father asked that I arrange a yearly income for you from the trust fund until you attain the majority," he repeated. He had known full well that she hadn't been listening the first time. it had been like a knife through his heart, the thoughts he had realized were undoubtedly going through her head, but at least he would be able to prove her wrong. "For the next five years, you'll receive a yearly stipend of one hundred thousand dollars."

_One hundred thousand dollars_. Christ on a cracker. All of a sudden everything was crystal-clear. Her father had never intended to hurt her. He had never planned to force her to give up her baby. He had wanted her to have all the money she'd need and then some to raise her little girl. Far from intending to punish her from beyond the grave, he had given her an incredible gift.

Of course, that didn't explain why he had named Mr. Gold as his executor, but as she realized what her father had done she realized why he must have done so. He had known she cared for Mr. Gold. He had known Mr. Gold cared for her in some form or another. By putting Mr. Gold in charge of her trust fund, he had tried to give the man a chance to redeem himself. It was obvious that Mr. Gold had decided to take that chance. Her father had to have known that they would have to remain in close contact under the terms of his will. Maybe it had been his way of trying to give her another gift, a gift even more precious than the resources to raise her baby.

Once again she was lost in her own thoughts. But Gold could tell from the light in her eyes that these thoughts were much more pleasant than her thoughts from a few minutes before. She understood, then. She understood that no one had been out to hurt her, not her father, not him. Perhaps she understood the reasons her father had had for setting things up this way, too. If not, well, that would come in time.

The pain in his chest eased. He believed, hoped, this could be a new start for them. Not that he was going to throw himself at her feet right this moment and declare his love. No, that wouldn't do at all. He had to do this slowly. And he had to be prepared for disappointment; there was still the chance that she wouldn't be able to move beyond all that had transpired before. But seeing the look on her face, the dawning comprehension and joy, the realization that he was at least partly responsible for her sudden good fortune…he thought that in time, she might, just might, be able to forgive him. God, he hoped so. These past few weeks had been agony. Not a day, not an hour had passed when he hadn't thought of going to her, begging her once again to hear him out. Somehow he had managed to refrain from doing so, knowing she wasn't ready for it yet. But her father's death had changed things. Though he sincerely regretted this, he couldn't deny that Joe Miller's passing had been the catalyst he needed to make his way back into her life, if not her heart right away. Joe had known this, he thought. It occurred to him that the man's highest acts of love for his daughter had been posthumous ones.

And the man had also accomplished something else. Though he couldn't have known it at the time (or perhaps he had, Gold mused as he remembered the words the man had spoken while they'd waited for the ambulance) Joe Miller had also ensured that his daughter and granddaughter would be safe from the mayor. Now that she would have a sizable income with which to raise her baby, Amy would never have any reason to go to Regina for help. Gold didn't believe that she would have done that in any case, not unless she was truly desperate. But he also knew that a single and poverty-stricken parent could be one of the most desperate souls there was. He knew, too, that Regina would have been prepared for the situation. Much like him, the woman's generosity would have come at a dear price. And unlike him, she would have had no compunctions about demanding that Amy pay that price. There was no reservoir of goodness hidden deep in Regina like Gold had discovered in himself; any true kindness and empathy in her had long been extinguished.

"May I have a moment alone with Amy?" he asked Ms. Vincent. Though it was phrased as such, the lawyer knew it wasn't a request. Her expression again grew wary, but she nodded in agreement and left the room without comment.

For a long moment Amy and Mr. Gold simply gazed at each other. He thought to himself that she was even lovelier now than she had been the day he met her. She was obviously one of those lucky women who bloomed with pregnancy. Though her movements were slow and at times awkward, her face was round and rosy and her eyes sparkled. Even her grief couldn't dim the quiet happiness he saw in her now. He knew it wasn't joy over the money, for she had worn the look even before she discovered her father had been looking out for her after all. Although he had never seen that particular look before, he knew in his soul that it was the look of an excited mother-to-be.

She thought that he was as elegantly dressed and impeccably groomed as ever. Yet there was a difference in him. He looked tired, she realized. Tired and unsure, two things she had rarely seen in him. She had noticed as he entered that he was limping a bit more than usual. It was very slight; most people wouldn't even notice it, but she wasn't most people. A wave of compassion passed over her.

Amy knew Mr. Gold had done some terrible things in the past. She knew he had intended to do such a thing to her in the beginning. But somewhere along the way he had changed his mind. More than that, _he _had changed. She knew better than to expect that he would reform completely; knew that he would never be one to completely walk the straight and narrow. But his actions, especially since her father's death, had shown her once and for all that there was a good heart buried beneath that calculating exterior. That goodness in him deserved a chance.

She opened her mouth to say something—what, she wasn't exactly sure—but he spoke first.

"Do you remember the first night you spent at my house?" he asked quietly.

"Yes," she replied, unsure of where he was going with this. Did she ever. Every detail of that night was permanently etched into her memory. Especially she remembered his face in the candlelight, his strangely serious expression. He was looking at her now with the same expression.

"I told you then that if your circumstances changed, I'd be the first person to tell you to keep your baby," he said slowly. "At the time, I said it merely to gain your trust. As I got to know you, though, I realized I meant it. There's a reason I never found a home for your child, Amy: no matter how good the prospective parents seemed, I knew that baby already had the best possible home…with you."

Amy's eyes filled with tears at the words. She believed him—staring at those dark brown yes full of pain and remorse, it would have been impossible not to. But there was something she had to ask.

"But if you knew my baby was meant to be with me…" she began, choosing her words with the utmost care. "Why did you continue with the adoption plan? Why didn't you tell me sooner you thought I should keep her?"

"I was going to," he responded, still speaking slowly, carefully. "The night you left, I was going to tell you. I think Regina suspected. I know she realized I had feelings for you, and she must have sensed that I was nearly ready to act upon them. That's why she let it slip to Emma about Henry."

"Emma was right," Amy whispered. "She said it was no coincidence that Regina told her then…"

He smiled then, a sad, weary smile. "A very perceptive young woman, our Sheriff," he said. "I planned to tell you myself. Not then, but later. I didn't want there to be any more secrets between us. I was going to tell you everything, then let you decide for yourself if…" He trailed off.

"If what?" Amy breathed. She held her breath, waiting for his answer.

"If you could live with knowing everything I'd done," he said in a rush, as though afraid he'd lose his nerve. "If you could live with _me, _knowing the things I'm capable of."

She was silent for a long moment. Now it was his turn to hold his breath. If there was any hope for them at all, now he would find out for sure.

"I need time," she said finally.

A spark of hope flamed within his heart. "Of course," he said, trying with all his might not to sound too eager. "I'll give you all the time you need."

She smiled a little then. "You will?" she asked.

"Yes," he said firmly. "I promise. You can have as much time as you need to…think things over. And, Amy…if you decide that you _can't _live with it…well, I'll find a way to accept that." The words were spoken with a quiet, simple honesty.

Her eyebrows rose. "Really?" she asked. A teasing note crept into her voice. "That doesn't sound like the Mr. Gold I know."

He took that as another good sign. Amy sounded now like she used to when they would playfully banter back and forth. "Well," he replied in a similar light tone, though he meant the words with all his heart, "perhaps the Mr. Gold you know has learned a few things."

Her smile widened. "Like what?"

He grew serious then. "Maybe he's learned…that sometimes when you love someone, it means letting them go. Letting them go, and trusting that they'll return to you in the end." He rose then, swiftly, before she could think of how to respond to _that. _"I'll be in touch, dear." Just like that, he was gone, leaving her to think over his final words.

…

Melissa Vincent wasn't sure what to expect when she returned to her office. Mr. Gold's demeanor when he left had given her no clues, though he had walked with a lightness in his step that hadn't been there earlier. With some trepidation she entered the office.

Whatever she'd been expecting, it certainly hadn't been the sight that greeted her: the sight of Amy Miller with a smile on her face. The girl was positively radiant, and she knew it wasn't just pregnancy hormones. The lawyer knew the glow of a woman in love when she saw it.

"Is everything all right, honey?" she asked, though the answer was perfectly obvious.

The girl turned shining eyes towards her. "Oh, yes, Ms. Vincent," she said, with something very close to laughter in her voice. "Everything is just fine."

**Sorry for the wait, but I hit a massive roadblock with this chapter. I'm still not completely thrilled with it, but the good news is that I _am_ completely thrilled with the next chapter, which I've already started working on. This chapter isn't really that important, anyway, mainly just to move things along. Chapter 14 is a different story (well, not literally, but you know what I mean).**

**How about Mr. Gold turning out to be a lawyer on the show? Would have been nice if they'd clued us into that fact a little earlier, though it's pretty obvious in retrospect. Had I known sooner I could have used it. In this story, though, he's just a businessman with some questionable ventures. In fact, this story will be pretty much AU from here on out. There won't be any disappearances or murders or anything like that. August will pop up, but Jefferson probably won't unless I get an idea for him. (Pity. He's hot, but he's no Rumple.) However, I have figured out how to work in Red Riding Hood's backstory. The writers did me a favor there. It'll come out in the massive fairy tale flashback I have planned for a few chapters out. Never fear, more smexy good times are ahead too.**

**I'm sure "Melissa Vincent's" true identity was easy to guess. In my version of Storybrooke she has no memory of the fairy-tale world, and she's no more evil than most lawyers (j/k). She's also not an informant for Regina (I figure after how Regina did her in the pilot episode she still wouldn't trust her in Storybrooke—though she may not know exactly why).**

**Standard disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon A Time or any of its characters, just my OCs. ABC and Disney have that pleasure. Nor am I making any money off this. I'm also not making any money off the following plug: Check out the site "Cats That Look Like Rumple" (.com) if you haven't already. It's hilarious (and there's a seriously hot bathtub pic of Robert Carlyle, which is enough reason by itself to take a look IMHO).**

**And as always I want to thank my loyal readers. Thanks in advance for not giving up on me or "Miller's Daughter". I promise I'll try to update quicker in the future, though I've just started a new job and come home exhausted most days (another reason for the delay). I know this chapter was kind of slow, but I promise the next one will make up for it!**


	14. Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

It was a rainy evening in March when the knock sounded at Amy's door.

At her new door, that is, not the door to her old room at the inn. Amy had just moved into a condo in the same building as Mary Margaret and Emma. She had signed the lease a couple of weeks earlier, when the first of the life insurance checks had cleared, but due to various circumstances she had only officially moved in a few days previously. Technically the condo was for sale, not a rental unit. But the owner of the building had been more than happy to allow Amy to rent the place on a month-to-month basis, or so the real-estate agent had told her. (Amy wasn't 100 percent sure as to the identity of the building's owner, but she had her suspicions.)

For the first time in her life Amy was living alone. So far she liked it, although it hadn't been quite a week yet so she supposed it was too early to know for sure. However, she _did _know she definitely liked the condo itself. It was nothing fancy, consisting of a living room, a small eat-in kitchen, a tiny half-bath off the entryway, and a single large bedroom with a full bath and an alcove. The alcove would serve as the nursery for the time being.

The condo had been the only thing available on such short notice—Storybrooke wasn't exactly the real-estate capital of Maine—but even if it hadn't been Amy still thought she would've chosen it anyway. Although it was small and not exactly equipped with the latest appliances, its hardwood floors and exposed-brick walls gave it a certain charm. Being small also made it easy to keep; once Amy gave birth and was on her feet again, it would be a cinch to keep clean. Since she would be a single mother with a newborn to care for, that was definitely a bonus. Besides, she had a feeling they wouldn't be living there all that long.

Though the rest of the condo was sparsely furnished for now, the nursery was all set up. Marco had finished the cradle and given it to her as a combination housewarming and baby gift. It stood by her bed, made up and ready for its soon-to-be occupant. She had found a changing table and a small dresser of the same polished maple as the crib, which were likewise ready for use, fully stocked with clothing and diapers.

Leroy Brown had come to set the furniture up the very day she moved in. Strangely enough, he had been happy to do so. Even stranger, he had showed up without a trace of alcohol on his breath. The little cooler full of beer he usually carried around with him was likewise absent. When she heard him humming under his breath as he put together the changing table, Amy couldn't hold back her curiosity any longer. "What's with you, Leroy?" she'd asked, handing him the bottle of water he'd requested when she asked him if he'd like anything to eat or drink. "Have you been taken over by body snatchers or something? You're acting like a pod person."

To his credit, Leroy had laughed. It transpired that the new and improved Leroy Brown was due not to an alien invasion, but a girl. Specifically Sister Astrid, a novitiate at the convent outside of town. It was like something out of a rom-com, Amy thought to herself as Leroy shared his unlikely love story. Bad boy meets good girl, boy tries to impress girl, and boy fails at first but manages to redeem himself at the eleventh hour with a wacky— and slightly illegal—stunt. The upshot was that Sister Astrid was working on getting released from her vows (not as hard to do as if she'd been a full-blown nun) and Leroy was attending twelve-step meetings. He proudly showed Amy the chips on his key ring; soon, he said, he would mark one month sober.

Before he left, Leroy apologized to Amy for gossiping against her in the past. Although he was some time away from the making-amends step of the Program, he had apparently decided to get an early start. "I never really meant any of it," he told her. "I always knew you were a nice kid. But when you're as down and out as I was, sometimes you get your kicks from another person's troubles. I don't want to be that way anymore, though."

"You won't be, Leroy," Amy assured him graciously. "I don't think you were ever really that person to begin with. I always thought there was a good man inside of you somewhere. Seems like Astrid saw him too, and managed to bring him out."

Leroy beamed, an expression no one would have ever believed just a few weeks earlier. "That's what love will do for you," he declared. "Who knows? If it worked for me, it might even work for…well…you know." Although he was one of the few in town who'd never been on the wrong side of a deal with Mr. Gold (if the man had run a liquor store it would be an entirely different matter) he still preferred not to invoke the pawnbroker's name.

Amy thought about that for a long time after Leroy left. She had always heard that love could change a person, but could it change a man like Mr. Gold? Moreover, did she really _want _Mr. Gold to change?

No, she finally concluded after hours of puzzling and puzzling until her puzzler was sore. She wouldn't want him to change even if he were capable of doing so. No matter how duplicitous he could be…no matter how many questionable things he'd done in the past…somehow, inexplicably, she wouldn't want him any other way.

Or perhaps it was all too explicable. Perhaps that was what true love was really all about.

But it had seemed to her at their last meeting that Mr. Gold, himself, wanted to be different. That he was _trying_ to be different. It would have been so easy for him to keep her inheritance from her. He could have used all manner of dirty tricks to get her back in his house and under his thumb. Instead he had honored his promise to her father. He had set her free. Although he wanted her, he wanted her happiness more. Maybe that was true love too.

Maybe Leroy had been right in a way. Maybe even the most desperate characters could be inspired to be a better person, if they had someone who loved them for what they were. Hell, even Regina Mills…Nah. Amy discounted that theory quickly. There were some people who even love couldn't reach. (Amy was not entirely correct in this statement. She had no way of knowing that Regina had once loved someone with all her heart. But Regina's heart had already been fragile and damaged since her earliest childhood. Being separated from her love by the one divide that even magic couldn't bridge had been enough to turn that heart to stone.)

She had only seen Mr. Gold in passing a few times since the reading of her father's will. He had treated her much as he had when they first met, polite, kind even, but aloof. Amy saw right through the act, however. His eyes gave him away. Those huge obsidian eyes seemed to glow with an inner light when he looked at her. The man literally burned for her. Once she might have found that frightening, but now it was simply enticing. She wondered if he knew she burned for him as well, then realized he probably did. For that matter, most of the town probably knew. Her sudden flushes, which had always been the true barometer of her feelings, always seemed to occur when he was near.

Yes, he obviously yearned to take her in his arms every time their paths crossed. Amy suspected that, were she not so heavily pregnant, he would actually like to throw her down on the nearest surface, tear her clothes off, and have his way with her (and wasn't that a fantasy she had replayed several hundred times in her head). But he never so much as intimated this by word or gesture. As he had kept his promise to her father, he was now keeping his promise to her. He wasn't going to push her. He was going to let her take her time. And she truly believed that he would accept whatever decision she ultimately made.

She _had _made her decision, in point of fact. She was going to give him another chance. But it would have to be different this time. They would have to start over. All the secrets and half-truths and flat-out lies would have to come out. And he would have to promise her that he would be a little more…scrupulous in his dealings. Amy was no longer so naïve as to think he would do a total 180, a la the Grinch on Christmas morning, but she did believe he could at least tone down the ruthlessness a touch.

Not that she expected him to cut it out completely, or even wished he would. She rather liked his devious mind. She enjoyed their verbal sparring and their cerebral back-and-forths. She would always have to be on her toes with Mr. Gold; their life would never be boring.

Though she had reached a decision, she hadn't yet been able to inform him of this. Events seemed to be conspiring against them. Storybrooke, once a little town where nothing much happened, was now a constant whirlwind of drama. As Ruby had so colorfully put it, "This shitty little backwater has turned into Peyton fucking Place."

For one thing, yet another stranger had arrived in town. This was the third stranger to show up in less than a year, which was unprecedented. Like Emma, though, August W. Booth quickly assimilated into the town. Amy had met him a time or two, and hadn't been able to help thinking that whenever strangers showed up in Storybrooke, they always seemed to be hot.

The ruggedly handsome newcomer was the indirect cause of a spat between Ruby and Granny. Those two had had more than their fair share of tiffs over the years, but this one had been the worst by far. Ruby had actually gone so far as to quit the diner and move in with Ashley in her rented room over the Family Shoppe. They had made it up, though, as they always did. To Amy's way of thinking, Ruby's short stint on her own had done her a world of good. She had grown up a bit, discarding her wild dreams along with her outrageous outfits and makeup. Without the paint, her true beauty was able to shine through. But it was more that; Ruby was happy now, satisfied with her life in a way she had never been before. She was back living with Granny and working in the diner, and they were getting along better than ever.

But the main event had been the disappearance of Kathryn Nolan, David's wife. The woman had finally realized the depth of her husband's feelings for Mary Margaret. David and MM, it turned out, had resumed their love affair. Though they had managed to keep it a secret at first, word had gotten out as it does in a small town. There had been some ugly scenes, between David and Mary Margaret, between David and Kathryn, and finally between Kathryn and Mary Margaret. The last had occurred at the school, in front of a hallway full of horrified students and staff. Amy hadn't been sure how she felt about this turn of events. She was very fond of Mary Margaret, and it was obvious to her that the schoolteacher and David Nolan were meant for each other. But she could see Kathryn's side of the story, too. The woman had just gotten her husband back, only to lose him to another woman. Amy couldn't blame her for being hurt and angry. She knew quite well how it felt to be betrayed by someone you loved.

Then Kathryn had disappeared. Her wrecked car had been found in the woods on the outskirts of Storybrooke. It was eerily reminiscent of what had happened to Emma a few months earlier, and to Ashley's father years ago. But when their cars had been found they had still been in them. In Kathryn's case, only the car had been recovered. The lady herself had vanished without a trace.

But a trace of Kathryn Nolan had soon turned up: specifically, her heart. During her extremely short-lived career as Emma's deputy, Ruby had come across the heart in a box buried by the Toll Bridge. The box in question had turned out to be Mary Margaret's jewelry box. DNA testing had confirmed the heart to be Kathryn's, and a hunting knife had been discovered in the grate in Mary Margaret's bedroom. Incredulous as it seemed, all evidence pointed to the gentle schoolteacher as the cold-blooded killer of her lover's wife.

Mary Margaret had insisted that the whole thing was some kind of horrible misunderstanding. Emma had believed it was a frame job. Amy, disabused of much of her naïveté in the last few months, was inclined to believe Emma's theory. But they were in the minority. Everyone else, particularly Regina Mills, seemed to believe that sweet Mary Margaret Blanchard had committed a crime of passion, and the general consensus was that she should pay for her heinous act as soon as possible.

But MM had had one unlikely ally: Mr. Gold. He had offered her legal representation, and had done his best to get her cleared of charges. Of course, being who he was, he hadn't done it purely out of the goodness of his heart; he had made a deal with Mary Margaret, that she would "owe him a favor in the future". Even so, he was the only person besides Emma, Amy and Mary Margaret herself who truly seemed to understand the ludicrousness of the charges against her. Even David had been plagued with uncertainty. On an intellectual level Amy could understand that, but in her heart she couldn't help but berate the man for turning away from the woman he so obviously loved.

Although it hardly seemed possible, even Mr. Gold's power had limits. Even the fearsome pawnbroker couldn't do much against what seemed to be concrete evidence. It had looked like Mary Margaret's goose was cooked, when unexpectedly she and her small group of defenders were vindicated: Kathryn had been found, dazed and disoriented, with no memory of where she'd been since her disappearance, but unquestionably alive.

The shit had really hit the fan then. Though Mary Margaret's name had been cleared, there were still countless questions to be answered. Where had Kathryn Nolan been? Why had the DNA test shown the heart to be hers? How had the heart come to be in Mary Margaret's jewelry box, and the supposed weapon in her apartment? These last two were easily answered: it had clearly been a frame job. But who had been behind it? Although she couldn't come right out and say so, Amy knew Emma saw Regina's fine hand in the whole mess. Though she hadn't had a chance to discuss it with Mr. Gold, she had a hunch that was his theory as well. That made it unanimous, because Amy was one hundred percent certain that Regina was somehow behind the whole thing. She was even more convinced when Sidney Glass confessed to kidnapping Kathryn and falsifying evidence. He claimed he had done it in order to later produce Kathryn and look like the hero, but Amy was calling bullshit and she knew Emma was too. Sidney had always been Regina's lackey. It was plain to anyone with a brain that he had taken the fall to deflect suspicion from the mayor.

For now, though, things had settled down somewhat. Sidney was in jail. Kathryn was still in the hospital, but she was on the mend. She had come to terms with the situation and given David and Mary Margaret her blessing, a move which Amy truly admired. Mary Margaret was a free woman, back in the town's good graces. Just a couple of nights previously Amy had attended her welcome-home party. (She had had to excuse herself to the bathroom for a towel-muffled laughing fit when Henry presented a homemade card from MM's class stating, "We're So Glad You Didn't Kill Mrs. Nolan".)

Now, Amy thought as she prepared to settle in for the night with a copy of _Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children_, which she'd wanted to read for some time, maybe things would calm down. She was ready to take it easy for a little while. Very soon now her life was going to undergo some major changes, and leisure time and relaxation would be a thing of the past. She planned to grab as much as she could while the getting was good.

That was when the knock came.

"Damn," Amy muttered as she made her ponderous way to the door. "Who could it be at this time of night?" This was to have been her first night alone in many months, since well before she got pregnant. Though the plan had been for Ruby and Ashley to take turns staying over until the baby came, tonight was Ashley's night to work at the bowling alley, and Granny hadn't been feeling well so Ruby had stayed with her. Even in her illness, the old woman had tried to insist that Ruby stay with Amy anyway, but Amy would have none of it. "I'll be fine," she had assured Granny over the phone. "If I need anything, Emma and Mary Margaret are just upstairs. They both told me all I have to do is call and they'll be here in two shakes of a sheep's tail." Finally the old woman had relented.

Emma was on duty tonight, but maybe Mary Margaret had decided to check in. with this thought in mind, Amy wiped the scowl from her face and pasted on a cheerful look. As soon as she opened the door, though, her expression melted into one of surprise and genuine pleasure. "Mr. Gold!"

There he stood, big as life and twice as sexy. Somehow Amy managed not to blush at the thought. He wore the black overcoat that always made him look so dashing, and under his free arm he carried a wooden box about the shape and size of a shoe box. At the sight of her, his face broke into that genuine smile that was becoming more and more common. "Hello, dearest."

"Come in, come in," Amy bubbled, suddenly more than willing to have company. "You haven't seen my new place yet. As you can see, I haven't quite settled in," she said as his eyes took in the small, sparsely furnished condo. "But I've got the basics." She stepped aside and allowed him to enter.

"It's charming," he said honestly. Then he turned his gaze to her. "And just look at you. You're very…pregnant." Amy giggled, and his smile widened at the sound.

"Just a few more weeks to go," she said as she led him into the living room. She gestured at her one major piece of furniture besides what was in the nursery, a sturdy plaid sofa. Though it was rather nondescript it was quite comfortable, and converted into a sleeper that was much comfier than most sofa beds. "Please, sit down."

He did, setting the small wooden box at his side. "I've been meaning to come by and see you," he told her, his eyes never leaving her, "but with all the recent excitement things have been quite hectic."

"And how," Amy agreed, curling up on the sofa's opposite end. "It seems like things are finally calming down, though."

"Let's hope so," he replied.

Amy's curiosity got the better of her. "What's that?" she asked, indicating the box.

His face grew somber. "Well," he began carefully, "I went by your father's house this evening—you know, of course, that it's getting ready to be sold."

She nodded. Melissa Vincent had informed her of this. For a short while after Joe's death, Amy had considered moving back there. Ultimately, though, she had decided against it. The house held few happy memories for her. She had realized it was best to sell it and make a truly fresh start. She thought her father would have understood.

"I found some personal items that I thought you might like to have," Mr. Gold continued. "They were all in this very box, by his bedside. It seems he wanted to have them close by. Would you like to take a look?"

Not trusting herself to speak, Amy could only nod again. Mr. Gold handed her the box. As he did so he clasped her hands for a moment. The gesture was brief, but undoubtedly affectionate. Amy felt her eyes begin to well up.

There was nothing of real value in the box, but to Amy it was a treasure chest. There were pictures of her parents, looking impossibly young and happy, and very much in love. The pictures seemed to date from the beginning of their courtship to the end of Grace's pregnancy. What people had always told her was true: Amy _did _look like her mother. But now, seeing him as he had once been, she could see her father in her too. There was their marriage license, dated a full two years before her birth, as Mr. Gold had said.

Amy's birth certificate was there, as well as the tiny hospital bracelet she must have worn as a newborn. At this sight the tears spilled over. She had never realized he had kept that. Nor had she known of the other mementoes her father had saved: the cards she'd given him for his birthday and Father's Day, the homemade ones of her childhood as well as the store-bought ones of more recent years. He had even saved her baby teeth, in a Tic-Tac box of all things. She laughed a little through the tears at this.

But the real treasures were at the bottom of the box. Amy let out a cry of joy. "My mother's jewelry!" she exclaimed delightedly, lifting out the thin gold chain and simple ring that were her mother's only legacy to her.

Being what he was, Gold couldn't help casting an assessing look over the ring and necklace. Even at a glance he could tell they were of little monetary value. But to Amy the crown jewels of England couldn't have been more precious. And that was the only thing that mattered.

"I think he always meant to give you these things, Amy," he said softly, with gentleness in his tone that few had ever heard. "I'm not sure why he took your mother's jewelry from you. Perhaps he thought your young man would get hold of them somehow and pawn them. Perhaps he just couldn't bear to lose the one tangible memory of your mother besides you. But whatever his reasons were, I do believe he was going to return them to you. I think…" He faltered for a moment before continuing. "I think he knew somehow that his time was short, and in case there wasn't time to tell you himself, he wanted to leave you proof that he _did _love you. He loved you all along."

Amy was crying, but he could tell they were tears of happiness. She lifted her face to him. "Mr. Gold," she said through her sobs, "thank you. Thank you so much. I can't tell you how much this means to me."

Maybe she couldn't tell him, but he knew. Although he had the means to gift her with anything her heart desired, he knew that no matter what lavish presents he gave her in the future, none would mean as much to her as this simple wooden box and its contents. "Amy," he said huskily. He had to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat. What he would say next, he didn't know, but the words escaped him before he realized. "Amy, I love you."

She went very still. Her wet eyes bored into his, searching, searching. He met her gaze squarely, praying she would see the truth in his words.

Slowly, so slowly, she brought a hand to his face. For a long moment she didn't speak, only cupped his cheek with infinite tenderness. Finally she broke her silence. "I love you too," she said softly.

They never quite knew how it happened, but suddenly she was in his arms. As their lips met Gold thought that if he were to die at this moment, he would die as a happy man.

It seemed as if the fates heard him, for suddenly he felt he _was _dying. Gasping, he pulled away from the kiss. Amy was confused. "Mr. Gold?" she asked. Her confusion turned to alarm as she realized he was struggling for air. "Mr. Gold!" she cried.

He was drowning. Oh, God, he thought fuzzily as the world turned black around the edges, he was going to meet the same end as Sheriff Graham. He was going to die just as he'd finally found happiness. It wasn't right, it wasn't fair. Just before he blacked out completely, that door in his mind that he had been pulling on flew open, and he remembered everything.

…

Rumpelstiltskin awoke with his head in Amaia's lap _(not Amaia, Amy; she's Amy in this world)_. For just a moment he was dazed, wondering what in the hell was going on. The feeling passed in a heartbeat, but for Amaia _(Amy's) _sake he pretended to come to more slowly. He remembered all of it now, but he couldn't be sure if she had remembered as well. _True love's kiss, _he thought. _True love's kiss can break any curse…well, any curse except for one. _

Then another thought occurred to him. With a grunt, he brought his hands to his face. When he felt the same smooth skin he'd felt for the past twenty-nine years he wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. As he opened his eyes, he realized they were still in Amy-Amaia's living room, still in Storybrooke. Make that _two _curses that couldn't be broken by true love's kiss. He'd done a good job of it, he thought ruefully.

"Mr. Gold," Amy-Amaia gasped as his eyes fluttered open. So she still didn't remember. That was all right. _He _remembered, finally. The curse wasn't broken, but it was weakening. Now that he was himself again he would be able to help it along.

"I'm all right, dear," he said faintly, grateful that his voice was still Mr. Gold's Scottish burr. "I'm…all right."

Amy-Amaia wept with relief. "You scared the hell out of me!" she exclaimed. "I didn't know _what _was wrong…I thought you were…" She couldn't finish.

"I'm fine, love," he assured her with a grogginess he didn't truly feel. Though he felt as though he could have bounced right up and turned a couple of cartwheels (the pain in his leg had disappeared entirely) he forced himself to sit up slowly. He knew she wouldn't understand his sudden miraculous recovery, or the instantaneous healing of his leg. All in good time, all in good time.

For the first time in nearly three decades, Rumpelstiltskin saw the face of his sweet Amaia. He had found her…just as he had promised her all those years ago, he had found her. How, he didn't know. It had taken him twenty-eight years, when it should have taken less than a day. Had the enchantment not worked? Then he cursed himself for a fool. Of _course_ it hadn't worked…she hadn't been wearing the ring when the curse hit, so he hadn't been able to find her immediately in the new world. Some all-powerful being he was. He hadn't even realized the Queen had gotten the curse back, not until it was nearly too late. It was just damn lucky he had managed to harness enough of his magic in that fucking cell to enchant the thing.

Luck was something he'd never had much of, before the Dark Curse or after it; but occasionally fortune had smiled upon him. It had done so the day he'd met Amaia in the true world, by the stream near his home, pregnant, alone and desperate. He had known from the beginning that she would be important to him, but he had never guessed _how _important. Now, all these years later, fortune had smiled on him again. Somehow, blindly, he and Amaia had found their way to each other. Somehow, with only the vaguest hints of what they had been to each other, they had managed to find love a second time.

But how had he suddenly remembered? Had true love's kiss worked that much? As Amaia _(Amy) _reached over to brush his hair out of his eyes, he saw the glint of her mother's ring on her hand. So _that _was it. She must have put it on before they kissed. He hadn't seen her do so, but it was the only explanation. _"As long as you're wearing it, I'll be able to find you," _he had told her in the world-that-was. And so he had. The minute it was actually on her finger again, he had found her. Or rather, he had remembered her…he had remembered who she truly was, who _he _truly was. He filed this away for future reference: objects that had been enchanted in their real world still had some magic here, in what was supposed to be a world with no magic.

Unfortunately, the magic wasn't as powerful as he'd expected. The curse was still in effect, and Amaia (ye gods, how was he going to remember to call her Amy?) was obviously still under its spell. Perhaps not for much longer, though. The curse was still holding, but it had weakened, he realized as the pieces of the puzzle flew together in his head. The Savior was here. Time was moving again. Other Storybrooke residents were slowly beginning, perhaps not to remember, but to take on aspects of their true personalities. The cricket had rediscovered his long-misplaced integrity and absolute conviction of what was right. Little Red had regained some of the confidence and bravery she had possessed in abundance in their real world, as well as the close relationship with her grandmother. The surly dwarf had reunited with his clumsy fairy. Snow White and her prince had made their way to one another, although they were currently estranged. Maybe he needed to give them a little push back into each other's arms.

Or maybe not. He wasn't exactly sure what the curse breaking would entail. They might find themselves exactly where they'd been before. This wouldn't be such a bad thing for most of them, even for him, though he'd grown to loathe that dank cell in the old dwarf mines. But for Amaia…God, no. He shook his head quickly to rid himself of the horrible image of his girl as he'd seen her last in that world: pale as milk, the light fading from her eyes, lying in a rapidly spreading pool of her own blood, while he looked on helpless to intervene, cursing the damned fairy who had bound his magic…

"Mr. Gold?" He heard her sweet voice again. With an effort he opened his eyes. There she was, his darling, glowing and healthy and _alive. _She had been barely so when the curse took effect. Surely Regina hadn't known that; if she'd known that the one thing he loved had been at death's door, he thought darkly, she would have held off an extra few minutes. There would have been no possibility of a happy ending for him, even in this world.

But thank the gods, she hadn't known. And his Amaia, his happy ending, had now taken his hand in hers, her face creased with worry.

He smiled. "I'm fine, love," he assured her. And he _was _fine. He hadn't felt this good since…when? It would have to be the morning he'd left the cottage for the last time, not knowing it _was _the last time, since, as was the case with most seers, he couldn't see his own future. He had woken before dawn, thinking to slip out without waking her, but she had sensed him leaving their bed and had held out her arms to him, still half-asleep, and he had gone into them as he always did, and they had joined as they so often had during the past few months, although the growing mound of the baby had made it more difficult of late. He'd gotten a late start that morning, but had never regretted it, especially after what had happened later that day. The memory had given him something to hold onto in that wretched cell, something to cling to that kept from going well and truly mad.

She must have wondered what had happened, when night fell and he still hadn't returned. He had promised her he would be back that evening. The little cinder-princess (Ashley Boyd in this world), had sent word to him, wanting to renegotiate a certain deal. It shouldn't have taken long at all. But it had been a trap.

"Are you sure you're OK?" his Amaia asked, still full of concern. "Maybe you should go to the hospital, get checked out."

That was the last thing he wanted to do. "That won't be necessary," he said, smiling again as he focused on his angel. He forced himself to stop dwelling on the past for the time being before he alarmed her further. "I just had a bit of a dizzy spell. With everything that's been going on lately…you know, with Miss Blanchard…I haven't been eating or sleeping like I should. Guess it's finally catching up with me." He cringed inwardly. Another half-truth and he'd sworn he was done with them where she was concerned. That was one area in which he and his Mr. Gold persona differed: in their true world, Rumpelstiltskin had never twisted the truth with Amaia. He had kept only one secret from her in that world. But it was necessary for the time being, he knew. If he told her the truth about what had just happened to him she'd think he had gone insane. Later, once she had awakened…surely it wouldn't be too long now…he would tell her everything. Maybe even the one thing he hadn't told her in their true world.

She seemed to accept this. "Well, if you're sure…" she said doubtfully, biting her lip. He'd forgotten how she did that when she was worried, or thinking hard. Another gush of love rose up in him. He fairly longed to surge forward and capture those sweet lips again with his own.

But that wouldn't be the act of a man who had just emerged from a near-faint. So he settled for squeezing the hand that held fast to his. "I'm positive," he told her.

"How about I make you some tea?" she offered, rising. Rumpelstiltskin nearly groaned aloud at the loss of contact. It was with a monumental effort he managed to refrain from saying _I don't want tea, I want you! _And said instead, "Tea would be lovely, dear, thank you." Half-truth number two in as many minutes. Gods, let her remember soon.

Although it wasn't so bad as he got to watch her move slowly and a bit awkwardly around the small kitchen, just as he'd watched her so many times before. It was so strange to see her in a modern kitchen rather than the rudimentary kitchen of his cottage, wearing modern clothes instead of one of the baggy shapeless dresses he had conjured for her to wear as she grew heavier with child. As usual, she was wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants and one of her crazy T-shirts. "The Many Deaths of Kenny" it said. She had explained it to him before, back when she was still living with him: Kenny was a character on that TV show she liked so much, the cartoon show with the little foul-mouthed children…what was it called? Oh yes, _South Park. _One of the running gags of the show in its first few seasons had been that the character called Kenny had died in nearly every episode. He recalled that he had actually watched a few episodes with her and had found himself enjoying some of them, particularly the one about the succubus and the one lampooning Scientology. He would have enjoyed them a lot more as Rumpelstiltskin, he realized as he watched her bustle about preparing the tea. One thing Rumpelstiltskin and his Storybrooke counterpart _did _have in common was a certain warped sense of humor.

Although, truth be told, he mused, he and his cursed alter ego were more alike than any of the other victims of the curse. They were both cunning, sly, and devious, fond of making deals with hapless fools who had no idea that he would always come out ahead. No one ever bothered to read the fine print of contracts, in this world or the one from which they had come.

Amaia had, though. In fact, she had refused to sign a contract with him. "I'll sign when the baby is born," she'd told him, "not before". That had been his first indication that she wasn't the typical desperate soul with whom he normally dealt. That had been the first sign that she was…different. At the time it had annoyed him, but he had still felt a grudging sort of admiration in spite of himself. Later, of course, the thought of a contract had been taken off the table entirely, but he thought if he had ever presented her with a written deal, she would have read over it thoroughly and argued over every detail before consenting to put quill to parchment. Just as she would have in this world. Other than the shyness that had never been a part of her true self, Amaia too was little changed from her fairy-tale self.

And somehow, even with what he had originally planned for her baby, she had grown to love him. That was the part he couldn't quite understand. Even after she knew, she had managed to find it in herself to forgive "Mr. Gold". Rumpelstiltskin had been up front with his plan; he had told her right off that he would give her baby to a set of deserving parents. Mr. Gold, however, had kept the truth from her as long as he could, and indeed had only revealed the full truth when she asked him point-blank. Even Rumpelstiltskin wouldn't have gone that far.

It amazed him that they had found their way to each other in the first place, without the enchanted ring to guide him. That love had grown between their two counterparts in spite of all the obstacles was more amazing still. But then, maybe it wasn't so incredible; after all, Snow White and her prince had found each other again, too, and there wasn't any sort of enchantment binding those two as far as he knew. Perhaps there _was_ some sort of magic at play here in this supposedly magic-less world, some sort of magic even he couldn't understand.

Amaia (Amy, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time) brought his tea to him then. She had made a cup for herself as well. Just as she settled down on the couch next to him, the wind picked up and the lights flickered, making her gasp.

"Guess it's a good thing we didn't go to the hospital after all," she said when the wind died down, sipping at her tea.

"Yes," he agreed. "The forecast was calling for major storms. Looks like they're starting."

"Maybe you should stay here tonight," she said, not quite meeting his eyes. That telltale blush crept up her neck and stained her cheeks.

That sounded like a lovely idea to Rumpelstiltskin. But Mr. Gold, he knew, would demur. So he said, with just the right hint of reluctance in his tone, "Oh, dear, I don't know…"

"No, really," she insisted, a bit of Amaia's old fire showing through. "It's getting nasty out there. I'd hate for you to drive home in that." As if to prove her point, a rolling boom of thunder shook the building.

He couldn't give in just yet, much as he wanted to; that wasn't Gold's style. "Are you sure?" he murmured. "You know how people talk in this town, and if someone sees my car parked outside your building all night…" He trailed off.

She grinned at him, her eyes bright with mischief. "Might I remind you," she asked, "that we lived together for, what was it, five months? I'm pretty sure everyone in town already thinks something's happening between us. In fact, I know they do. And I'm sure everyone's getting bored with the whole 'Kathryn Nolan is alive' saga. We might as well give them something new to talk about."

He chuckled. She hadn't changed a bit, his girl, not really. "Well, then," he said with a straight face, "I suppose if it's for the good of the town gossip mill."

He wondered where he would sleep. He knew there was only one bedroom and one bed in the apartment. As if she'd read his mind, she volunteered, "The couch turns into a bed if you want to sleep in here. Or you can share my bed, but I'm such a whale right now I take up most of it. And I have to get up to pee a lot, and I don't want to disturb you getting up and down. You said you haven't been sleeping well."

Curse his tongue. He wanted nothing more than to lie snuggled right up next to her tonight, no matter how often she was getting up and down. But he knew that Mr. Gold would have done the gentlemanly thing and taken the couch. "The couch will be fine," he smiled, wondering if there was any way on earth he could help her along to remembering her true self.

Draining the last of her tea, she set the cup to the side and stifled a yawn. This time Rumpelstiltskin didn't have to think about what Mr. Gold would do. "You're tired, love," he stated. "Why don't you go on to bed? You need your rest. We'll talk more in the morning."

"OK," she said, too tired to argue. "If you promise you'll get some sleep."

"I'll go to bed when you do," he promised, saying nothing about sleep. Rumpelstiltskin had always required very little sleep, and he had far too much to think about now to relax enough to get even the little he needed. But of course, there was no explaining that to her right now.

He walked her to the doorway of her bedroom, careful to use the cane as he always had. He knew he couldn't explain away his sudden spryness. Much as he didn't want to let her go, he was excited about getting to move about freely again once she was in bed. He would have to be very careful, though, in case she got up. It was going to be a long road ahead, having to continue the role of the crippled pawnbroker when he was, in his mind anyway, the trickster Imp. (Though he wasn't really an Imp. She had known that before, had known that he was once an ordinary man who had fallen under a curse, but he had never been specific about which curse. She had never pressed him, seeming to believe the memories of the curse overtaking him were too painful for him to share. She wasn't entirely wrong.)

In the doorway, she turned to him as if to say a polite "Good night" and excuse herself, much as she had done in her first few months in Mr. Gold's home. She must have seen something in his eyes, however, for she wrapped her arms around his waist instead. They held each other for a long moment, each relishing the feel of being in the other's arms again (she had no idea just how long it had been). he buried his face in her hair, smelling that sweet lavender scent that had always clung to her hair and body even in the other world. He smiled a little. She had used nothing but lavender-scented shampoo and body wash in all the time he'd known her in this world. Perhaps there were some things even a cursed mind couldn't forget.

"You sure you don't want to share a bed with a beached whale and wiggly baby?" she murmured into his neck.

No, no he wasn't sure at all. "I'll be fine on the couch," he assured her, thinking that he might just crawl in beside her later, after she was asleep.

With one last squeeze she reluctantly let go. "Good night," she whispered, gazing up at him with those forget-me-not eyes.

He dipped his head enough to plant the softest kiss on her lips. "Good night, my darling," he whispered back.

She turned to go into the bedroom then, and he shuffled back into the living room. When he heard the water running in her bathroom, he put the cane aside and quickly readied the sofa bed, enjoying his body's newfound agility. The bed was already made up, probably from the nights Little Red and Cinderella (no, dammit, Ruby and Ashley; how was he ever going to keep everyone's names straight?) had stayed over. With a sigh he slipped between the sheets; much as he would have preferred to remain with Amaia, it was a relief to be alone with his own thoughts, not having to constantly make sure his Mr. Gold mask was in place.

There was so much to think about, he mused. He wondered if Regina would realize he had remembered. He thought not; he remembered the wrinkle in the curse that stated she would know when someone had regained their memories, but not who it was. he had added that specifically for himself and Amaia, believing that they would find each other immediately in this new world. Well, it hadn't worked out that way…but it _had _worked.

Even if she did figure it out, he wasn't too worried. He didn't think she would make a move against him, at least not right away. In the old world, he had been the only one with more power than her. In this new world, who was to say it wouldn't be the same? She obviously still had some of her magic (he spared a thought for Graham and for Joe, her unknowing victims; he would get back at her for that somehow, he vowed). If his leg healing was any indication, he just might have some of his powers left too. It would be foolish for her to try anything against him.

If he had to, he would promise to help her keep the curse active for as long as possible. It would give him time to figure out what would happen when the curse finally broke. For it _would_ break, just as he had foretold all those years ago. But that didn't mean he couldn't keep it going just a little longer. If there was a way to save Amaia, he was going to find it. Once he did…there had to be a loophole, somewhere; none of his deals were without them…well, Operation Cobra would have a new member.

That brought his thoughts to young Henry. He had been one of those loopholes. Rumpelstiltskin had promised Snow and Prince James Charming that their daughter would come to break the curse, but he had needed a way to make sure she came to them. He hadn't mentioned that it would be the _child_ of their daughter that drew her to the place of their curse; that part he had foretold later, with only the rats in his dungeon to hear his pronouncement. Somehow, miraculously, it had worked. More proof that this world was not entirely without its magic.

Rumpelstiltskin didn't even realize it when he slipped into sleep.

**And we are now officially in AU-land. This was originally part of a super mega long-ass chapter, but I divided it in half. I'm still tweaking the last half, but hopefully I'll have it up shortly. I know I said I wasn't going to use Kathryn's disappearance and supposed murder, but I figured out how to make it work.**

**As much as I loved this week's episode, it's not going to take place in my version of OUAT. Baelfire's fate and the identity of August W. Booth are completely different in my story. I kept it in canon as long as I could, but now we're at the point where we go from canon off into the recesses of my own hollow mind.**

**By the way, one of my very first reviewers has an awesome Golden Swan fic out. Check out "Sunshine and Rain" by Ravenclaw992 if you haven't already. I will never be able to hear "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" again without thinking of Mr. Gold. (The song could actually be about him if you think about it. I mean, he makes a deal with a golden fiddle as the stakes. I could see Rumple doing that.)**

**I don't own anything, blah-de-blah-blah-blah. Walt Disney Corporation and the writers blah blah blah, so on and so forth. That about covers that.**

**So Mr. Gold/Rumple and Amy/Amaia are back together again! Woot! I knew it was gonna happen, but it was still a relief to write it. And Rumple remembers! What could possibly go wrong now? In a world with an Evil Queen turned Bitchy Mayor, a lot. Stay tuned! **


	15. Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

Someone was screaming.

For a moment Rumpelstiltskin thought he was back in the time of the Ogre Wars, in the time when he was nothing more than a human. _"Papa! They've come for Moraine!" Bae said breathlessly. His dark eyes were wide with panic that mirrored Rumpelstiltskin's own. That couldn't be right, Moraine was only thirteen, just a few months older than Bae…dear gods, surely they hadn't lowered the age again! He rose quickly and grabbed his staff, determined to find out what was going on. Perhaps there was some sort of misunderstanding._

_But it was no misunderstanding. Moraine, her hands bound and her child's face frozen with fear, was being led by a group of soldiers towards their waiting horses. More soldiers, still on their horses, surveyed the scene coldly, seeming to pay no heed to the girl's terror or the pitiful screams of her mother._

"_Please, no! She's my baby!" Gerta screamed. Rumpelstiltskin's heart twisted in pain for the poor woman. The soldiers apparently felt no such empathy. "Nonsense," one of the men on horseback sneered. Though it had been years since he'd laid eyes on the man, Rumpelstiltskin recognized him instantly. Hordor. Rumpelstiltskin's eyes narrowed. The only other man in his regiment who hadn't been killed in the ogre attack, since he had gone to the village with his father and the other men of high rank for a night in the local tavern. _

_Rumpelstiltskin had been left in charge because of his age, being a good ten years older than any of the other men in their regiment. But age was no help in a surprise attack. He had fought with everything in him,, as had they all, but it had been useless. The ogres flung the young men like rag dolls, and crushed their skulls like walnuts with a single fist. In no time at all the ground ran red with the blood of young men, all of them his friends and comrades. There hadn't even been time to mourn as the carnage raged. He had done the only thing he could think to do, a thing he would never be able to decide for sure if he regretted: he threw himself facedown in a pile of gore and lay still, praying the ogres would believe him dead with all the rest._

_It worked; while ogres possessed the strength of ten men and were notoriously bloodthirsty, they were also known to be rather dull-witted. It seemed as though an eternity passed until they finally took their leave. Even after he was sure they were gone, Rumpelstiltskin continued to lay perfectly still for several long minutes, barely even breathing due to both his terror and the stench of blood._

_Finally, though, he could stand it no longer. He raised his face from the blood-drenched earth and crawled on all fours to the body of one of the young men. It was Joshua, whose family had lived next door to Rumpelstiltskin's own since before either of them was born. Though Joshua was only about twenty and Rumpelstiltskin was past thirty, they had been close all of Joshua's life, with Rumple acting as an uncle of sorts to the younger man. Just before the last resurgence of the ogre wars Joshua had been betrothed to Elishka, his childhood sweetheart and the most beautiful girl in their village. But now, seeing the way Joshua's spine had been snapped like a twig, Rumpelstiltskin knew that the wedding planned for Joshua's next furlough would never take place. Joshua's eyes stared sightlessly at the night sky and it took Rumple a moment to realize why he could see the young man's face and his wrecked spine at the same time: his head had been twisted clear around on his neck. _

_Rumple had crawled to the body of his young friend and had taken him into his arms, gently, so gently, as though he hadn't already been literally torn apart. Holding the boy's corpse in his arms, he lifted his face to the cold, uncaring moon and bayed his grief like a wounded animal._

_That was how Hordor and the other men had found him. Hordor had been enraged at the loss of his battalion, knowing it would reflect badly on him; commanders were not to leave their soldiers. In the way of most men long on physical bravery but short on true courage, he had chosen to pin the blame on Rumpelstiltskin. He claimed that the spinner had hidden the instant the ogres entered their camp, while he, Hordor, had been bound so as to be carried off for later consumption but had managed to escape his bonds. It was a ridiculous story, since ogres had never been known to eat humans or save their food for later, but it was believed. And when the Duke of the Frontlands had decreed that Rumpelstiltskin should be hobbled as punishment for his act of cowardice, it had been Hordor who had swung the axe._

_Rumpelstiltskin had hoped never to lay eyes on him again. But here he was, all these years later, obviously a man of rank himself now while all Rumpelstiltskin had was his son and a reputation as "the man who ran". He didn't mind that so much, truth be told. Though it hadn't happened as Hordor said, he still felt he had been a coward. He could have continued to fight. Though there was no way he could have defeated the ogres by himself, he could have died in battle. His son would have gown up with a dead warrior for a father, and his wife would never have fled in shame. But when he looked at his boy he could never bring himself to truly wish he had died that night. Baelfire was the best thing that had ever happened to him._

_Now it looked as if he would lose Bae too. Hordor had just announced that the fighting age had been lowered to thirteen, and Bae's birthday was in a scant three days. Helplessly, he clung to the boy as they watched Moraine being taken despite her mother's pleas and her father's ill-conceived attempt to attack the soldiers. "My baby!" Gerta screamed again as they began to ride away, Moraine on the back of Hordor's own horse. "Oh God, my baby! Mr. Gold! Mr. Gold, help me!"_

Rumpelstiltskin woke with a start, the sheets soaked with his sweat. A dream, he reassured himself. It was only a dream. But the woman screaming nearby…that was no dream. That was really happening. As he attempted to make sense of what was happening the woman's cry came again.

"Mr. Gold!"

_Amaia. _He leapt from the bed and flew the few steps to her bedroom doorway, remembering at the last second to grab the cane he no longer really needed.

She was lying on her side with her knees drawn up to her enormous belly. He wondered if it was safe for her to be in such a position before he took in the agony in her face. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her mouth was drawn up in a grimace of pain and terror.

"Amy, what's wrong?" he asked sharply, moving to her side much too quickly. She was hurting too badly to notice, however. Blindly she grasped for his hand and he gave it to her, his heart doing flip-flops in his chest.

"Mr. Gold, help me," she groaned. "I think the baby's coming."

The human Rumpelstiltskin would have fainted dead away at the words, and he did grow a bit dizzy for a moment. But it passed quickly as he marshaled the steel spine that was the only good thing the Dark Curse had given him, and one of the other things he shared with his Storybrooke counterpart.

"Are you certain, dear?" he asked, somehow managing to sound as calm and unruffled as usual. "It's still a bit early yet, you know. Perhaps it's just false labor."

"No, no, I think this is it," she groaned, squeezing his hand so hard he thought she might crush the bones. "I've had a few contractions before, just on and off, but they started coming pretty regularly a little while ago. I hoped it was just Braxton Hicks again, but they started coming closer and closer together…and I think I'm bleeding, too."

Not bothering to waste time on words, he flung the blankets back to see for himself. His heart sank as he saw the red that stained the crotch of her pants. But it wasn't a horrible amount, and some blood was to be expected when a baby was born, he knew. "Just a bit," he said in as soothing a tone as he could manage. "I think it's time we got you to the hospital, though, dear."

Just then a flash of lightning sizzled across the sky before leaving them in pitch blackness. Amy shrieked, whether from pain or surprise he wasn't sure. When the lightning abated he looked around the room. The small nightlight by the bed was no longer lit, and the digital clock on the nightstand displayed no numbers.

The power was out. Well, wasn't that just wonderful.

"Oh God, oh God," Amaia moaned, somehow managing to tighten her grip on his hand. "Here comes another one."

None of the books she'd read had prepared her for this pain. It felt as though her belly was being crushed in a giant vise. Amy had planned to be stoic during her labor, since she knew screaming was useless and did nothing but waste the energy she would need for expelling the baby. But when she'd made those plans she'd been envisioning something like really bad period cramps, not this torture. She whimpered and then shrieked as the pain seemed to reach a crescendo.

Mr. Gold was still holding her hand. As the contraction ripped through her he brought his free hand to her face, stroking her cheek and smoothing her sweaty hair back from her brow. "There, there, love," he soothed. "It's all right. You're going to be all right." He went on stroking and petting and murmuring comforting nothings until the pain receded enough for her to relax her death grip on his hand. She never noticed that he had dropped the cane to the floor.

Once the pain had abated entirely for the time being Rumpelstiltskin sprang to action. "Have you packed a bag for the hospital yet, darling?" he asked. She nodded, trying to focus on breathing as Doc had coached her to do. "Good, good. Where is it?"

"Closet," she said between deep breaths. "On the floor by my shoes."

He retrieved the small suitcase she'd had ready and waiting for weeks now, also on Doc's advice. Only when he was heading for the bedroom door did he realize he had forgotten all about the cane. Luckily Amaia still hadn't noticed, her mind being occupied with far more pressing matters.

"Where are you going?" she cried as she saw that he was preparing to leave the room.

"I'm going to put your bag in the car," he said comfortingly. "Then I'm going to come back for you, and we'll try to get you in the car before the next one comes. We'll have you at the hospital in no time."

That sounded like a good idea to Amy. "Hurry back," she pleaded. "I was timing them before the power went out. They're coming every five minutes."

"I'll hurry," he promised. As he made his way to the front door a knock sounded. He wrested the door open and Snow White nearly fell inside.

"Is everything OK?" she asked. "I thought I heard screaming…" She trailed off. She was holding her cell phone up as a flashlight. "Mr. Gold?"

"She's in labor," he replied shortly. This was no time for pleasantries.

"Oh, my God!" Snow White's…no, Miss Blanchard's…free hand flew to her mouth.

"Indeed," he said with a thin smile. "I'm glad you're here, though, Miss Blanchard. Would you stay with Amy while I put her suitcase in the car? I'm taking her to the hospital."

"The hospital?" she repeated dumbly, and Rumple felt like shaking her. For all her flaws, the real Snow White had never been this obtuse.

"Yes, the hospital," he said with exaggerated patience. "That's the best place for babies to be born, you know. So if you'll kindly move out of my way—"

She was shaking her head. "No, you can't go to the hospital," she said. "I was listening to the radio before the power went out…the roads are blocked. There are trees down everywhere, and flooding. No one's supposed to try to drive, they said. They said this is the worst storm on the coast of Maine in years."

His heart sank. "Dear God, no," he sighed. What could possibly happen next?

"But listen," Snow…Miss Blanchard babbled. "I'll go in and see Amy. She may not be as far into labor as you think. First babies usually take a while to come, they told me at the hospital. Maybe the worst of the storm will pass in a little while. You know what? I'll call Emma. She can get an ambulance or something for us."

Maybe Miss Blanchard wasn't as stupid as he'd thought. "Yes, please do that," he said. If there was anyone who could help them now, it was the Savior. This woman's own daughter, he realized with a moment of wonder. If she was powerful enough to break the curse, surely she could figure out how to transport a laboring woman to the hospital in these conditions.

Snow left him then, to see to Amaia. He heard Amaia's voice rise in greeting as the princess turned schoolteacher entered the bedroom. At least there was a woman here now, one Amaia considered a friend. That was something. He had no experience with childbirth, having been away in the war when Baelfire was born.

Baelfire…His heart twisted in pain. How could he ever have forgotten his son? Now he understood the twinges of longing he had felt whenever he'd held an infant, and the protectiveness he'd begun to feel towards Amaia's unborn child. He _had _been a father. Like the parents who had traded him their children in both worlds, he knew what it was to lose a child. Some of them had been happy to do so, seeing the most precious gift life could give as nothing more than a hindrance; but others, he realized now for the first time, had done so as an act of love, knowing they could never give their child the life it deserved. Especially he remembered the shepherd's wife, who had traded him one of her newborn twin boys so that they wouldn't all starve. Even as the Dark One he had felt some compassion for her, and realizing the extent of his actions now…not just as a human, but as a father…nearly brought Rumpelstiltskin to his knees. Gods above, what sort of a monster had he become? What sort of a monster would he be again once the curse finally broke?

_No, no, _he thought. It did no good for him to think this way. He wasn't a monster in this world, only a man who had done some dreadful things. Perhaps that was all he had ever been in the other world as well. After all, aside from those first few…missteps, it wasn't like he had killed anyone. He had stopped killing when his son had fled from him. Though he had given other people the means to kill since then, no one had actually died by his hand. The other things he had done, bad as they were, could be fixed. He could make amends for them somehow. He _would _make amends, in this world if there was time, or in the other if there wasn't. He would redeem himself. He would make himself into the kind of man Amaia could be proud of.

He could do that. With Amaia by his side, he could do that. He knew she would never ask such a thing of him. Somehow, inexplicably, in both worlds, she had seen beyond the monster to the man he had once been. Perhaps that wasn't so unusual. How many stories, especially fairy tales, were about good women who had fallen in love with bad men? The truly unusual thing was that she had accepted him just as he was. She loved the man behind the monster, but she loved the monster too. She had been willing to raise her child with him in their true world, and if tonight had been any indication she was willing to do the same thing in this one. A love like theirs was more powerful than any magic. If she could see beyond the monstrous exterior to the man he had really been…if he could love her enough to want, really want to be the man instead of the monster…then that love had to be more powerful than any spell, any curse that could be thrown at them. He had to believe that.

He wondered what he should do now. Obviously there was no point in taking the suitcase to the car right now. He needed to go back into the bedroom and see how Amaia was faring, and if Sn—Miss Blanchard had managed to reach Emma.

He re-entered the bedroom, dragging his leg as he did so. Though Amaia hadn't noticed his new dexterity, the former princess was sure to. The two dark-haired beauties smiled at him as he came in. Amaia's was genuine, but he saw immediately that Snow-Mary Margaret's was not. There was the faintest frown line between her brows. He assumed the frown was at him and his sudden re-emergence in "Amy's" life, and thought no more of it.

"I was just telling Amy that it'll be a little while," she said with forced cheer; he could tell it was false but doubted Amaia noticed. "I _did _get hold of Emma, though, and she said she'll get an ambulance to us the second the roads are cleared." The frown lines grew more pronounced. "Mr. Gold, can I talk to you in the living room for a moment?"

Was she actually going to come out and ask him what he was doing here with Amaia? If so, she was far braver than her meek little schoolteacher persona had led him to believe. That was more the sort of thing the real Snow White would do. He was curious to hear what she had to say, as well as assure her it was none of her business, but he couldn't help applauding her backbone.

"Certainly," he said in his best smooth "Mr. Gold" tone, "if it's all right with Amy." He gave his girl a questioning look. She smiled and nodded, too relieved at the temporary absence of pain to ask questions.

As soon as they both stood in the living room the ex-princess's smile faded. "Whatever could be the matter, Miss Blanchard?" he queried, waiting for her to ask just what he thought he was doing slithering back into her friend's life.

But that wasn't what had the young woman concerned. "I reached Emma, like I said," she told him in a low voice, "although the connection was bad. She did say she would send an ambulance as soon as one could get through. But she said she didn't know how long it would be. Maybe hours, she told me. We may have to deliver this baby ourselves, Mr. Gold."

He would have preferred the tongue-lashing.

"I see," he said, keeping his tone neutral. Absurdly, the famous line from _Gone with the Wind _came to him: "'I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!'" He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from bursting into crazy Rumpelstiltskin-esque laughter.

"It'll be OK," she said, as much for her own sake as his. "I took a first-aid course before I started volunteering at the hospital. I remember what they told us to do when a woman was in labor and couldn't get to a hospital. And Amy has _What to Expect When You're Expecting _on her bedside table; there's a whole section in there about what to do if you can't get to the hospital in time. We'll be OK. We just need to light some candles and get some stuff together, just in case."

"All right," he agreed, waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it didn't he finally had to ask. "Is anything else troubling you, Miss Blanchard?"

Once again he expected the indignant question, and once again it didn't come. "Well, it's kind of silly," she mumbled, dropping her gaze. "But when I was talking to Emma, like I said, the connection was really bad. It finally cut out entirely…but right before the line went dead, I heard the weirdest sound. I swear it sounded like a woman laughing."

Rumpelstiltskin's blood froze in his veins. _Regina. _There was no other explanation. Maybe she didn't know he had his memory back, but she had enough magic to be able to eavesdrop on a phone call between her two arch-enemies. She knew Amaia was in labor. Dear gods, what could she possibly have up her sleeve? He didn't know, but he did know one thing: it couldn't be good.

He barely managed to keep his smile in place. "I'm sure it was nothing, dear," he lied through his teeth. "Like you said, the connection was bad. Perhaps you somehow overheard another phone call or something." Though he didn't believe the words for a minute, they were enough to reassure the little snow princess. She relaxed visibly, the frown lines disappearing.

"You're right," she said. "Of course, you're right." She straightened. "I'll get some candles gathered together. You go sit with Amy." Right then she sounded more like the real Snow than Mary Margaret Blanchard.

"You do that," he said, glad for the sudden re-emergence of the princess's long-misplaced backbone of steel. He hoped it would stick around long enough for them to get the baby safely delivered before Regina could arrange any sort of mischief, or worse.

"Um, guys?" Amaia called from the bedroom. "Hey, you guys?" she didn't sound as though she was in pain, but her voice was definitely strained.

"Go," Snow mouthed to him. For the first time since the Dark Curse, he followed orders.

Amy stared at him apprehensively as he entered the room. "I'm pretty sure my water just broke," she greeted him.

Oh, great. He hoped Snow would hurry. "That's all right, dear," he assured her. "Snow told me we can deliver the baby ourselves, should it come to that."

She gave him the strangest look, and he wondered why. Surely it wasn't just horror at being told that her baby would be brought into the world by a pawnbroker and a schoolteacher (who were actually a powerful magician and outlaw princess). Then he realized that he had inadvertently blurted out Snow's true name. He would have kicked himself if that wouldn't have confused her more.

"What did you just call…" she began, then stopped abruptly. For a moment he was foolish enough to hope that she might have regained her memory. Then her face tightened and he realized she was having another contraction. This realization was confirmed as she let out an ear-splitting screech.

He was at her side in an instant, trying vainly to soothe her. "It's OK, it's OK," he chanted. "I think it's time to start pushing now, love."

Her knees were drawn up again, and he saw that her body was literally jackknifing with the pain. "No, no," she cried.

Snow came in then with an armful of candles. She must have gathered all the decorative candles that had been in the living room. "What's wrong?" she asked.

Rumpelstiltskin was having his hand pulverized again, so he couldn't speak. Instead he nodded in Amy's general direction.

Snow got the message. "Is it her water?" she asked. He nodded again, teeth clenched. Who would ever have guessed that little Amaia had the strength of an ogre in her delicate little hand?

The candles were dumped unceremoniously as the princess-schoolteacher flung the covers back. Even in the dark she could tell that the bed was now soaked in liquid. Rumple, with his supernaturally powerful night vision, could tell that it had a pink tinge to it.

To her credit Snow Mary didn't bat an eyelash. "OK," she said cheerfully. "Let me get these candles lit and I'll gather everything else we're going to need." She bustled about setting down candles and lighting them, as Amaia writhed and screamed and Rumpelstiltskin wished he could do the same. He managed to refrain only by understanding that as bad as his hand was feeling, Amaia must feel a hundred times worse.

If only this were the other world. He could have teleported for the midwife he had planned to arrange (although he would have had to wipe the woman's memory afterwards), and he could have helped with the worst of the pain with herbs and incantations. Then again, remembering exactly where they had been at this moment in their true world, perhaps it was better that they were here. He had been unable to do anything there, in the mines, with his magic bound. At least here he could be close to her, as close as he desired, not just ineffectually grasping her hand though the iron bars. He thought she might be stronger in this world, although maybe what magic he had still possessed had blunted the true pain of her grip on his hand.

Mary Margaret White placed a basin of cool water at his side, along with a dishrag. "Here," she said, not a trace of the timid schoolteacher about her now. "Use this to wipe her face. It might help a little." With his free hand he dipped the rag in the water, wrung it out as best he could, and commenced to wiping it tenderly over her face.

Dimly he realized he was singing. _"If only, if only the woodpecker sighs," _he warbled. His Mr. Gold voice wasn't that much more pleasant than his true one, at least in song, but it did seem to relax her just a little. _"The bark on the trees was as soft as the skies. As the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely…" _He gathered his air to finish the little tune. _"He cries to the moo-oo-oon, if only, if only."_

Amaia's iron grip loosened a fraction. She gazed up at him, bewildered. "How do you know that song?" she asked, her voice raspy from screaming. "Granny used to sing that to me when I was little. Where did you hear it?"

He told her another half-truth. "I heard you singing it once when you lived with me, while you were cleaning," he said. "I guess it stuck with me." He made no mention of the fact that they had been living in his small cottage at the time, rather than his grand estate. Nor did he mention he'd heard the song before that, as a babe in his own mother's arms, and had later sung it to his own small son.

"Sing it again," she pleaded. Though he couldn't believe that she actually wanted to hear him sing, he gladly complied. The little cradle song seemed to soothe her, and as she relaxed so did her clasp on his hand.

Snow came back into the room then. "I've got water boiling," she announced. "Thank God you've got a gas stove, Amy; even with the power out I was still able to light it. The scissors are ready to go in as soon as it looks like we're going to need them. Now I just need some string. Do you have any shoelaces or something?"

"There's a brand new pack in my top drawer," Amy said, gesturing towards the dresser.

The displaced princess retrieved said package. "Good, we're all set," she said. "Now. When the next contraction comes you're going to have to push."

Amaia moaned.

"I know, I know," Snow said gently. "But you have to, Amy. It's the only way to get the baby out. I don't think it'll take very long. The baby's coming so fast, a few good pushes should do it. Just think, in no time you'll be holding her in your arms and all this will seem like a bad dream."

The thought of finally getting to hold her daughter made Amy smile, but the smile quickly turned to a grimace as another contraction sliced through her. Though it felt like her very core was splitting in two, she did as her former teacher had requested and pushed with all her might.

It really didn't take long, but to the fearless trio it seemed like an eternity. Snow came and went, fetching towels and readying everything for the delivery, but Rumpelstiltskin never left his girl's side. He held on to her hand even as she seemingly liquefied every bone in his own. He wiped her face and crooned nonsense to her even as she screamed and cursed and wept.

A couple of times she cried for her father, and once even for the mother she couldn't remember. Rumple's heart ached as she called out to the parents who were both now lost to her. But mostly she cried his Storybrooke name, and that made him feel better. At least when she called for the man she knew only as Mr. Gold he could stroke her face and whisper, "I'm right here, dear. I'm not going anywhere." The name of her baby's father never passed her lips, and he wondered if she had forgotten the man entirely, if somehow in her pain-fogged mind she believed that _he _had been the one who made the baby with her. Oh, how he wished that were true!

Finally, after what seemed like hours but was really only forty-five minutes or so, Amaia let out a roar as her body bore down of its own accord. "She's coming!" she cried. Snow ran to the kitchen to get the water and the other supplies. Rumpelstiltskin moved to the end of the bed, watching in fascination as the circle of the baby's head grew larger with each push. Instinctively he placed his hands on the bed between Amaia's thighs, not a moment too soon as it turned out. Suddenly the baby's head was in his hands, quickly followed by the rest of her body.

He held the tiny, blood-slicked newborn in his hands, scarcely believing that a creature so small could have caused such hours of torment. _What now?_ he thought. Was he supposed to hold her upside down and spank her, as he'd seen on TV? He didn't think they did that anymore in real life. Before he could decide what he should do the baby coughed, then let out a spluttering, angry cry.

"She's here!" he announced unnecessarily as Snow came back into the room. Amaia sobbed with relief and held out her arms for the baby.

"Do we need to clean her up first?" he asked Snow, who seemed to realize what she was doing far more than he did at the moment.

"NO!" Amaia bellowed. "Give me my daughter!"

Her voice was so loud it startled them all, and the baby's cries grew more forceful. He turned to Snow questioningly.

She smiled. "You heard the lady," she said. "We can cut the cord and tie it off while she's holding her."

That was all the encouragement he needed. With infinite care, he placed the tiny, slick, howling baby into Amaia's waiting arms.

"She's beautiful," the new mother wept, gazing with adoration at the infant. Though she was still wet with blood, though her head was rather pointy, though she was still attached to the thick cord that had tied her to her mother, though she was screaming at the top of her little lungs, Rumpelstiltskin couldn't have agreed more.

"Your daughter," he whispered into his beloved one's ear. She raised her starry eyes to him and smiled, a beatific, dazzling smile.

"Thank you," she whispered to him. Whether she was thanking him for handing her the baby or seeing it into the world he couldn't say, and at this moment he didn't really care.

"You're most welcome, my love," he told her, kissing her on the forehead.

She turned her gaze back to the baby. "Hello," she whispered. "Hello, little one."

The baby continued to scream and flail her miniature fists. She was so small, Rumpelstiltskin thought as he gazed at the tiny girl. But she was big enough. And she was certainly loud enough. This child was a fighter, no doubt about it. All the spirit of her mother had been passed on to her.

Amaia was so enraptured with her daughter that she didn't even notice when the afterbirth came, which was just what Snow had been counting on. "Let me take her for a minute now," she said, coming to the side of the bed. "I need to clean her up a little. You can have her back as soon as I'm done."

At that moment Rumpelstiltskin forgave the princess. Any grudge he had held, any thoughts of revenge he might have harbored for what she and her husband had done to him in the other world, vanished without a trace. She had helped bring the child of his love safely into the world, and he was forever in her debt. "Thank you, Miss Blanchard," he said simply. He would repay her as soon as he could. He would see to it that she was reunited with her Charming, even if it did bring about the end of the curse. _How_ he would manage this he wasn't sure, but he would find a way.

The princess smiled. "You're welcome, Mr. Gold," she replied. She thought fleetingly that no so-called true father could look as exhausted and overjoyed as the pawnbroker did right now. For some reason it put her in mind of someone else, though she couldn't say who. When she took the baby from Amy, the newborn's feather-lightness also seemed to jog something deep within her. It seemed to Mary Margaret that she had once held a baby just as small, just as brand new. Of course that was ridiculous—the closest she'd ever been to a woman giving birth was during her time at the hospital, and that was usually well after the fact—but she couldn't shake the strange sense of déjà vu she experienced as she held the little one.

She took the baby over to the bureau, where she had the pot of water and several towels waiting. She lay the squalling infant on one and commenced to clean her gently and carefully, as though she were washing a piece of fine china. The baby really _was_ beautiful, she realized as she tenderly wiped her clean. Of course all babies were beautiful, but this one seemed especially pretty. As she quieted a bit Mary Margaret could see the tiny, even features…the small upturned nose, the suggestion of arched brows that right now looked like lines drawn in sand, the rosebud mouth. When she had passed the washcloth over the baby's head a few times she saw that the child had inherited her mother's dark hair.

"She's a little angel, Amy," she said over her shoulder cheerily. "I think she looks just like you." She swaddled the baby in a blanket then and prepared to take her back to her mother. "You should probably try to nurse her if you can, while she's still awake."

Amy didn't respond. When Mary Margaret reached the bed, she saw that the young girl's eyes were squeezed shut and her head pressed into the pillow. Mary Margaret felt the slightest trace of apprehension. "Amy, are you OK?"

The girl opened her eyes then, but they looked slightly unfocused. When she spoke, her words were slow, halting. "The room is spinning," she announced. Was she slurring just the tiniest bit?

"I'm sure it is," Mr. Gold said soothingly, but Mary Margaret could see that the pawnbroker felt the same slight trepidation as she. "You must be exhausted, love. But you heard what Miss Blanchard said, you need to try to nurse. Here, I'll prop you up a little and we'll see if we can get her to eat. Then you can rest. You've certainly earned it." They had all earned it, he thought.

Once Mr. Gold had propped Amy up with a few pillows Mary Margaret laid the baby in her arms. Slowly, as if her arms were two lead weights, Amy lifted the child to her breast.

"Well," Mary Margaret chirped, suddenly feeling as though she was intruding by witnessing such an intimate scene, "I'm going to go make some tea. Would you care for a cup, Mr. Gold?"

The pawnbroker nodded absently, never taking his eyes away from Amy and the baby. "Yes, dear, thank you," he said. Mary Margaret headed for the kitchen, glad to have found a suitable excuse to leave. This was something private, she thought, something between Amy and her daughter…and Mr. Gold. Even if the baby wasn't his flesh and blood, it was clear from the word go that he was staking his claim. Mary Margaret didn't think that was such a bad thing. He and Amy had apparently patched things up, and she had seen a side of him that she had never even imagined while the girl was in labor—a tender, caring side. He'd never left her side, not even for a minute, and had held her hand throughout even when it was clear she was crushing his. Maybe Emma was right. Maybe there were hidden depths to Mr. Gold that no one suspected.

She had just put the kettle on when she heard Mr. Gold's shout.

"Miss Blanchard!"

His voice was strained. Mary Margaret ran back to the bedroom. Mr. Gold stood by the bed, the baby in his arms, and he definitely looked concerned now. "She nearly dropped her," he said. "She was doing fine, and all of a sudden her arms just went limp. If I hadn't been here she would have dropped her."

Mary Margaret made it to the bedside in two steps. "Amy," she said loudly. Her blood ran cold as she got a good look at the girl. Amy had fallen back on the pillows, and her eyes were closed. "Amy!" she repeated, an unaccustomed sharpness in her tone. The baby started to cry again.

Amy opened her eyes, but they were definitely unfocused now. "Wha?" she slurred.

"What's happening?" Mr. Gold asked, sounding frightened.

Mary Margaret glanced towards Amy's legs and froze. There was a pool of blood between them, and it was spreading. It looked as though she was still bleeding. But shouldn't it have stopped by now?

"Oh God," she said. "I think she's hemorrhaging."

Even in the candlelight she saw how Mr. Gold's face went pale at the words. "Oh, no," he whispered. "That's what happened to her mother…"

Mary Margaret felt sick as she understood what he was saying. "I'm going to call Emma again," she declared. "I'm going to tell her we need an ambulance, _now._" she fled to the living room where she'd left her phone.

Rumpelstiltskin stared down at his girl. It had been too good to be true, he thought desolately. He had thought when the baby was born safely that Regina hadn't had any time to work up any of her mischief. He should have known better. Even Regina wouldn't harm an innocent child—not a child she wanted for herself, at any rate. The child's mother, on the other hand…

And just as with her other victims, no one would be able to pin this on her. It was common knowledge that Amy's mother had hemorrhaged to death during childbirth. Being what she was, Regina probably even knew that Amy had been seconds away from perishing from the same thing when the curse took effect. No one would think it unusual if Amy met the same fate as her mother—tragic, of course, but not unusual. Amy's death would serve more than one purpose for Regina. Not only would it take his true love from him, but it would clear the way for her to take the baby for herself, as he saw now she must have been planning all along. "Oh you _bitch_," he breathed. "Not you, darling," he hastened to assure his love, though she didn't respond. It appeared she hadn't even heard him. She was sinking fast.

Dear gods, he couldn't let her get away with this. He _wouldn't _let her get away with this. But how was he going to stop her? What could he do, in this world without magic?

"The ambulance is on its way," Mary Margaret yelled from the living room. "Emma put me through to the dispatcher. She says we need to try to massage her uterus and make it contract. That might stop the bleeding."

"Massage her…" he called back. Was the princess telling him he would have to reach up inside her?

"On her belly," Mary Margaret called. He felt a surge of relief. That he could do, although he would have done the other if he'd had to. But he didn't want to risk injuring her further. Surely he couldn't do much damage just massaging her stomach, however.

Carefully he laid the child in its cradle. Then he turned his attention to Amaia. He put his hands on her lower belly and rubbed as firmly as he dared, praying he was massaging the right place. As he did so he wasn't aware that he was saying "Please no, please no, please no…" over and over. Nor was he aware that tears streaked his face.

His eyes were so blurred with tears, in fact, that for a moment he failed to notice the strange thing that was happening. As he rubbed, his hands, which had been like ice, began to grow warm. Glancing down, he was amazed to see that they were actually glowing. Not only that, but they were _his _hands—not Mr. Gold's perfectly manicured hands, but the claw-like appendages of his true self.

He barely had time to register this before he realized that the blood, which had been flowing steadily, had slowed to a trickle. It was working. By the gods, it was working. He didn't break his pace, but inwardly he exalted. He had been right earlier, he thought. There _was _magic in this world after all. Not as much as there had been in their true world, but maybe just enough.

Even after the bleeding had completely stopped he continued to massage. He wasn't going to take any chances. He was growing weary, however, and not from the constant rubbing. Magic had always taken something out of him, and in this world the effect seemed to be multiplied. And this was the most powerful kind of magic, life-or-death magic. He had used it on her once before, he recalled. Not in the dwarf mines, of course, where he was almost completely powerless, but early on. He had managed to pull her and the unborn child through, but it had left him literally wrung out. It had taken him days to get back on his feet again, rather than the usual few hours. He smirked as he remembered that, then as now, it had been Regina's doing which had necessitated the efforts.

He had foiled her then, and he would foil her again. If he didn't pass out, that is. Sweat poured from him as he continued his ministrations, but he kept on valiantly. He didn't even notice when Mary Margaret reentered, or when she picked up the baby, who was fit to be tied by now, and attempted to soothe her. The unknowing princess thought about offering to help, but the look on Mr. Gold's face made her think twice. He was entirely the Mr. Gold she was familiar with now, his face grim and set with determination. If she so much as spoke a word, she was quite certain he would snarl at her. Mary Margaret decided it was best to tend to the baby and let him see to Amy. He was obviously doing as the dispatcher had said, and she didn't want to get in his way. She only prayed it was working.

It _was _working. The hemorrhaging had stopped entirely some time ago. But the damage had been done. Amaia was deeply unconscious, and he feared she might be comatose. Only the shallow rise and fall of her chest told him that she was, in fact, still alive. He nearly groaned aloud when he glanced up at her face. It was as pale and waxen as the face of a corpse, and as still. Her eyelids didn't even flicker.

So engrossed was he in his task that he never heard the sirens in the distance. He didn't as much as glance up at Mary Margaret's cry of "Oh, thank God!" or her dash to the front door. He didn't even realize it when the paramedics swarmed into the room. When they peeled him away from his girl, however, that he noticed. He _did_ snarl then, and looked so fearsome that the paramedic who held him actually dropped his arm and took a step back.

"It's all right, Mr. Gold," the man said nervously. Rumpelstiltskin recognized him instantly as Snow's dwarf friend Bashful, though in this world his name was Arnold Timmons. "We're going to take her to the hospital now."

Rumpelstiltskin's mind cleared a bit at the word. _Hospital. _Though he was so drained he couldn't remember exactly what the word entailed, he knew instinctively it was a good word. It was where there were people who could do what even his power could not. It was where she needed to be. Though he didn't respond, he stood by silently as the other paramedics loaded Amy onto a stretcher and placed an oxygen mask over her face.

He turned at the sound of a familiar voice. "The baby looks fine," the voice was saying. "We'll need to put her in an incubator as soon as we get to the hospital just to be sure, of course. But everything looks good. I was worried her lungs might not be fully developed yet"—and here a smile came into the tones—"but that doesn't seem to be a problem." As if to confirm the statement the baby let out a wail.

It was the man formerly known as the dwarf named Doc, now known as Dr. Dockery. His eyes met Rumpelstiltskin's as he smiled reassuringly. "The baby is fine," he repeated for Rumple's benefit.

Good, he thought. That was good. But…"Amy?" he asked. "What about Amy?"

Doc's smile faded. "We're doing everything we can," he said gently. "You managed to stop the hemorrhaging, but she's lost a lot of blood. She's going to need a transfusion as soon as possible. If we can get her to the hospital in time…" He faltered a bit, then continued. "If we can get a transfusion going ASAP, it'll be her best chance."

"I'll donate," Mary Margaret volunteered quickly. "My blood type is B positive. Will that work?"

Doc shook his head. "Amy's blood type is A negative," he said. "We have A negative at the hospital, but we'll have to get there quickly. If you were type O we could do it. O is the universal donor. But…" he trailed off.

The paramedics were transporting Amy from the room. "Wait!" Mary Margaret cried suddenly. "Mr. Gold is type O."

Rumpelstiltskin turned to stare at her. This was something his Mr. Gold self had never been aware of. "I am?"

Mary Margaret blushed. "When I was seeing Dr. Whale…" she stammered. "He used to let things slip about people's medical records. I know that's a HIPAA violation, but he must have figured I wouldn't say anything. Anyway, I remember him mentioning once that you were type O. 'I can't imagine Gold ever donating blood, though,' he said. 'And no one would want his blood anyway. He'd probably charge them for it.'" Her face was scarlet as she finished.

Rumpelstiltskin didn't give a damn. If Dr. Whale's loose lips ended up saving his girl's life, he decided, he would buy the man a steak. He turned to Doc. "Do you have the equipment you need?" he asked. He was already rolling up his sleeve.

"In the ambulance," Doc said. "But Mr. Gold…we need to make sure before we…"

"Then make sure," he snapped. "I'll be in the ambulance when you're ready."

As he followed the paramedics out of the condo, he heard Doc on the phone. The dwarf had never been a fool, he thought.

Once they were in the ambulance, he turned to Arnold 'Bashful' Timmons. "Do what you need to do to get us ready," he said. "There's no time to waste." Bashful hopped to. He was apparently smarter than the average dwarf too, Rumpelstiltskin decided. Briefly he wondered what had become of Dopey. That poor little creature had indeed been the dopiest living thing he had ever come across. But the thought left his mind as Bashful swabbed his arm with an alcohol wipe, preparing it for the needle.

"This isn't considered optimum conditions for a blood transfusion," the dwarf-turned-paramedic confessed, "but like you said, there's no time to waste." Without further ado, he inserted the needle into Rumpelstiltskin's vein.

He didn't even feel it. As the Dark One, he had had an extremely high pain threshold; but even as a mortal he wouldn't have registered the pain. His focus was entirely on Amaia. His girl was being similarly prepared by another paramedic (his nametag read Isaac Jolly, and Rumple suspected he had discovered the identity of the dwarf who had once been Happy). As the needle entered her skin he thought, hoped, he saw her flinch the tiniest bit. That was a good sign, he thought.

Doc came puffing into the ambulance. The small space was quickly becoming crowded. "It's true," he gasped, winded from his impromptu hundred-yard dash. "He's a universal donor." He surveyed the scene in front of him. "Good, you've already prepped them both. Let's do it then."

Rumple realized he didn't have the baby with him. "Where's the child?" he demanded.

"Sheriff Swan is transporting the baby to the hospital," Doc replied. "Since she seems to be doing well, there's no need to bring her in the ambulance…although we _will _have her checked out thoroughly as soon as we get her to the hospital." He met Mr. Gold's gaze squarely. "But for right now we need to focus on her mother."

Rumple nodded. "Do what you need to do," he said.

As the ambulance sped through town towards the hospital, he took no notice of the needle dangling from his arm or the bag attached to it. His eyes were only for Amaia. He recalled something he had said to her once, in the other world. Though he'd never been able to come out and say "I love you" in so many words, he had found other ways to express it to her. This had been one of the ways.

He leaned forward and brushed her forehead with his lips, careful not to disturb any of the equipment surrounding them. The dwarf medical personnel were busy monitoring said equipment, he saw, and was glad of it. What he had to say now was for Amaia's ears alone.

"I'd give you all the gold in the world," he murmured to his girl. "I'd give you all the jewels on the earth. I'd give you my life's blood."

He thanked the gods that in this world that was possible. He only hoped it would be enough.

**I'm so sorry it's been such a long time between updates! It's been a hella crazy last few weeks for me. The new job has been a lot more involved than I expected and has taken up most of my time. The little bit of time I wasn't at work or studying I was with family and friends. I think, though, that I'm getting the hang of it now. Hopefully that will leave me more time for my leisure pursuits, one of which is this story.**

**How much did you all love the season finale? Oh, when he laid eyes on Belle! Oh, when he embraced her! Oh, when she remembered him! I may have bawled a little. Oh, and Emma realizing the truth and opening a can of whoop-ass on Regina was great too. I am so counting down the minutes until Season 2!**

**But I'll reiterate that we're in the AU now. Though Rumple's been reunited with his love, and though the curse will break within the next few chapters, it's going to be a whole different ballgame. I do think August will turn out to be Pinocchio in my own little alterna-verse, though. But whether he and Emma end up together remains to be seen. **

**I still don't own anything except my OCs. That makes me sad.**

**And I still love everyone who's been reading, reviewing, alerting and favoriting—even now, when it's been four-plus weeks since my last update. Let me also plug yet another story: "The Tune of Bullets" by Bad Faery. It's even more AU than mine, and completely awesome. I love Belle when people write her right. **

**I'm not even going to promise the next chapter will be up soon, because that's practically a guarantee that events will conspire against me. I'll say only that it will be up at some point.**

**Happy June, everyone!**


	16. Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

Many hours later—after they'd arrived at the hospital, after the transfusion of his blood to Amaia had been completed and she'd received another transfusions from the blood bank, after the baby had been examined, adjudged healthy, and placed in an incubator as a precautionary measure—Rumpelstiltskin finally had no choice but to answer nature's call. He ignored the urge for hours, refusing to leave Amaia's side while the medical personnel of Storybrooke General labored to save her life. But his darling was out of danger now. She was still unconscious, but the healthy pink had returned to her skin, courtesy of the blood that had been pumped into her. Doc—Dr. Dockery—said she was merely deeply asleep now, as could be expected after such a grueling labor and delivery. He cautioned that she had a long convalescence ahead of her, but that she _would _recover. That was all Rumpelstiltskin cared about. His love was going to recover, and he would be right by her side the entire time.

Now that she was out of immediate danger, beginning the long road to recovery, and—most importantly—resting under the watchful eyes of Sheriff Emma Swan and Mary Margaret Blanchard, aka Snow White, he could take a moment to attend to his own needs. He went to the small washroom off the recovery room where she was stationed and took care of business as quickly as he could. When he went to wash his hands, however, what he saw in the mirror above the sink made him gasp and stagger back.

Unnaturally large golden eyes stared back at him. His skin was once again the rough, scaly greenish-gray it had been in their true world. He gripped the edge of the sink with his hands, willing himself not to faint, but when he looked down he nearly did so anyway for his hands were once again the same claws ending in greenish talons. Experimentally he bared his teeth at the mirror, seeing the same blackened stumps he had loathed above all other qualities of his appearance after his…change.

_How? _he thought as he struggled to remain upright. _How...And how did no one notice?_

Once the initial shock subsided, he was able to answer his own questions. It was the curse, of course. It had been broken for him, and he had reverted to his true form. That explained the disappearance of his limp, too. But everyone else was still blinded by the curse, so they saw him as the same Mr. Gold he'd been for the past twenty-eight—almost twenty-nine, he amended—years. A man to be feared, mistrusted, despised even—but an ordinary man nonetheless.

That was good, he supposed. It certainly wouldn't have helped Amaia if Mary Margaret/Snow had fled screaming into the night at the sight of him, to say nothing of Doc and the dwarf-paramedics. It wouldn't have helped Amaia either to see his loathsome visage. Although she had never feared him or found him repulsive in their true world after her initial fright wore off, he couldn't begin to imagine what the cursed version of her would have thought upon seeing the man she loved inexplicably transformed into a monster.

If his guess was correct, and he was certain it was, only one citizen of Storybrooke would be able to see him as he truly was. Rather than fear, the realization filled him with a grim sort of excitement. Now _that _was a reaction he rather looked forward to.

Composed now, he left the washroom to find Snow waiting for him. "She's coming to, Mr. Gold," the princess-turned-schoolteacher informed him. "You might want to…" Her sentence was left unfinished as he hobbled quickly into the recovery room. (Someone, he didn't know who, had had the presence of mind to bring his cane to him at the hospital. He longed to break the damn thing over his knee, but that would be…unwise. For now he needed to keep up appearances. But the constant false limping was inconvenient, to say the least. He was already devising scenarios in his head of how "Mr. Gold" could overcome his limp. Surgery, perhaps, or some sort of injections. Yes, injections would be easier to pull off, and much easier than going under the knife. Though he knew it couldn't do him any harm now, he didn't relish the thought of that sawbones Whale sawing into _his _bones.)

When he entered the recovery room, however, thoughts of his limp instantly left his mind. Amaia was indeed stirring. Her eyes were fluttering, fighting to open, and she was murmuring something. "Baby…my baby…Mr. Gold…"

In an instant he was at her bedside, smoothing back her hair, answering her with murmurs of his own. "Yes, darling. I'm here. I've been right here all along."

Her eyes finally opened completely. She stared at him with an odd mix of contentment and confusion. "You _are _here," she said softly. "I had the most awful dream, Mr. Gold. I dreamed you were gone…I couldn't find you anywhere…and then I _did _find you, but you were in this terrible place…like a dungeon or something…and then I was having the baby, and it hurt so much, I thought I was going to die…you were holding my hands through the bars, but you couldn't get out. I was dying and you couldn't get out."

She wanted to tell him more. Wanted to tell him that he hadn't been Mr. Gold in the dream, nor had she been herself. He had been the strange creature from her other dreams, and while she had looked like herself, she had known instinctively that she wasn't Amy Miller of Storybrooke, Maine, but someone else entirely. If only she could remember _who _she'd been…who he'd been. That seemed very important. Maybe he could help her figure it out. She opened her mouth to ask him, but exhaustion stole her voice.

Rumpelstiltkin's heart twisted in agony as she recounted her "dream". Only he knew that it wasn't a dream at all, but the way things had really happened. He _had _left her, albeit unwillingly. She _had _finally found him, only to go into labor nearly as soon as she did so. He _had _looked on, helpless to intervene, as her blood—so much blood; too much blood—had soaked into the filthy floor of his prison. Just as the light faded from her eyes the dark cloud had come rolling over them both, and they had awoken in this new world, as completely different people, yet destined to find their way back to each other and play out the same scene.

But this time it had ended the way it was supposed to. He pressed his lips to her forehead, whispering, "Shhh. Don't try to talk now, darling. It's all right. Everything is all right. Rest now. You need to rest."

She opened her mouth again, this time to ask about the baby. But before she could get the words out, darkness stole over her again.

…

"_Rumple!" she cried, rushing to his cell as fast as her burden would allow._

_He looked up, scarcely believing his ears. Surely it had been his imagination…or perhaps it was a trick of Regina's. But no, it was truly his girl, running towards him in a slow and awkward way. In one fluid motion he reached the bars of his cell just as she did._

"_Amaia, my love," was all he could say. Heedless of the bars between them, he snaked his arms through and clasped her as closely as he could in an embrace._

_Her grunt of pain was almost inaudible, but of course he heard it. Quickly he let her go and she stepped away, but only a step. Her hands still grasped his._

"_You found me," he stated, smiling down at her. It was his true smile, the smile no one now living had ever seen, save her; and despite the rotted teeth and unnatural skin, there was no more beautiful sight in the world to her._

"_Finally," she breathed. "Finally. Oh, Rumpelstiltskin, I was so frightened. I knew something awful had befallen you, but I didn't know what it was. You told me not to leave the glade, no matter what, and after the last time…oh, gods, but now I wish I had…what have they done to you?"_

"_It's all right, my sweet," he assured her, brushing her hair back from her face as he had done countless times before. "You did right. They haven't done anything so horrible to me, darling. They've treated me quite well, considering."_

_Her lower lip quivered the tiniest bit. "I know," she said. "I know what they think you did, and I know why they think it. Rumple, it was _her _again, wasn't it?"_

_She didn't need to say the name. They both knew perfectly well who she meant. "Yes, love," he confirmed. "When she couldn't get at me one way, she figured out another way. Thank the gods you listened to me this time, and were protected." His eyes narrowed a bit. "Yet here you are now. How did you get here, Amaia? And how did you find out where I was, and why?" He knew no human could have breached the wards he had placed around his home. Those within could leave at will, but only he and those with him could enter. _

"_It was a bluebird," she explained. "Snow's bluebird, to be exact." She told him how the bluebird had found their enchanted glen and had communicated to her his fate, the crime he was accused of. The bird had further told her that the Evil Queen was in the midst of preparations for the Dark Curse which the countryside had whispered of for months, and that she, Amaia, could slip out of the glen undetected._

"_So I did," she concluded breathlessly. "I found your cloak,"—she gestured at the red velvet cloak trimmed in gold, which he saw perfectly well, but made the wearer invisible to human eyes—"and I came."_

_Questions, he had so many questions. He settled on one. "The bird spoke to you?" She nodded. "And you understood?"_

_Her forehead wrinkled adorably, as it always did when she tried to explain things she didn't quite understand. "It didn't exactly speak," she said slowly. "It…chirped, and twittered, the way birds do, you know…but in my head I could understand what it was trying to tell me."_

_He didn't bother asking how that was possible. He knew. The other time she had left the glen…the time the Evil Queen had very nearly put an end to her…he had found her in the nick of time and labored long and hard to save her life. In doing so he had transferred quite a bit of his own magic into her. He had been aware of this all along, as had she. They'd known a little of what she could do with her new power, but he had told her there were things yet to discover. Apparently the ability to communicate with animals was one of them._

_But there was one thing he still didn't understand. "And the bluebird…_Snow's _bluebird…came to you? It betrayed her?"_

_Amaia shook her head. "No, no. The bluebird said Snow is honest and fair. She truly believes you did…that horrible thing. If she knew you were innocent, she would free you immediately. Especially with what's coming now."_

_Yes, what was coming now. The Dark Curse. What little of his magic he still had told him it would be soon, quite possibly that very night. The Queen had done what he had believed—what he had _hoped_—she would be unable to do. She had sacrificed the thing she loved most, and in doing so had sacrificed the last remaining shred of goodness within her. And there _had _been goodness within her, once. Deep in his heart, Rumpelstiltskin mourned the woman who was more to him than anyone knew, even his sweet Amaia. He mourned the woman she could have been, the woman she_ should _have been. Gods, there were so many things he should have done differently. But the dice was cast now. There was no turning back._

_Poor Amaia. He saw in her eyes that she believed there could still be a chance. Her next words confirmed this. "Listen, Rumple, I'll go to Snow," she said excitedly. "When she sees me, she'll know the truth. She'll know you couldn't possibly have done what you're accused of. She'll free you, Rumple, I know she will! And once you're freed, with your magic unbound, you can figure out a way to stop the Queen."_

_He shook his head slowly, sadly. "It's too late, my love," he said quietly._

_Her eyes filled with tears. "No," she said. "No, it can't be!"_

"_The Curse is in motion," he proclaimed, hating to shatter her fragile hope but knowing it was inevitable. "The Queen enacted the last step tonight. The hardest step, the one I thought she wouldn't be able to bring herself to take…but she did it. I underestimated her." Her tears spilled over at this, but he continued. "Or perhaps I overestimated her. It amounts to the same thing in the end. The Curse is coming. Even if I were free I couldn't stop it now."_

"_But…I can still try," she protested, tears streaking her cheeks. "Rumple, I have to try."_

"_There's no way," he reiterated. "There's no time. Snow White is giving birth to the princess as we speak. Our savior. Emma…She's our only hope now."_

_Finally Amaia grasped the futility of her desperate plan. "Then what can I do?" she asked, her voice breaking only a little despite her weeping._

_He answered without hesitation. "Stay with me."_

_They sank to the floor of the abandoned mine where he was being held, still holding hands through the bars. How long they sat that way he was never sure. It could have been minutes or hours._

_They spoke little. Once Amaia asked, "Where will we go?"_

"_I don't know," he replied honestly._

"_Will it be…terrible?"_

"_Perhaps," he shrugged. "Perhaps not. There'll be no magic where we're going, I do know that."_

"_That might not be such a bad thing," she said thoughtfully. "No magic…if there is no magic, you'll be a man again. An ordinary man."_

_He wasn't sure whether to be cheered or depressed at the prospect. "True," he conceded. "And I made…certain arrangements with Regina, when I told her what she had to do to enact the Curse. Of course, at the time I didn't believe she would be able to follow through, but…we made negotiations and she will have to honor them."_

"_What sort of negotiations?" she asked. She shifted a little; the hard dirt floor was uncomfortable, and she had a cramp in her abdomen. She hoped it was just from her recent journey._

"_In this new land, I'll have comfort," he told her, resting his head against the bars. Unconsciously, she leaned forward until she was doing the same. "I'll have an estate, be wealthy. More than that, I'll have power."_

"_You have that now," she pointed out, their foreheads now touching as well as their hands._

_He chuckled a bit at that, not his demonic cackle but his true laugh. She was quick, his girl. "Yes, but not the same kind. Here, all my power is wrapped up in my magic. There, I suppose it will be wrapped up in my wealth. Either way, I'll be feared, respected."_

"_Will I fear you?" she asked in a low tone. "Will I even _know _you, Rumpelstiltskin? Will you know me? Or will this Curse take us away from one another?"_

_He remembered the ring then. "Let me up a minute, love," he requested, unable to keep the jubilance from his tone. "I've just remembered something."_

_He retrieved the ring from its hiding place under his straw-stuffed bed tick. "I have something for you, dearest," he said, his back still turned to her. "Something that's very precious to you…and now to me, as well." He turned around then, and she saw the ring in his hand._

"_My mother's ring," she gasped, joy momentarily overriding her trepidation. _

"_Yes," he said. "But not just that, not anymore. This ring is our loophole, Amaia."_

_That dear line formed between her brows. "Our…loophole?"_

_His face broke out in a wide smile. "Yes, my darling. This ring will guarantee us a happy ending no matter what world we end up in." Seeing her confusion he elaborated. "I managed to harness just enough of my magic in this…place," he looked around the mine with disgust, "to enchant it. As long as you're wearing it, I'll retain my memories of this world. And I'll be able to find you in our new land, no matter where you are. Once I _do _find you, you'll remember as well. We can be together, out in the open, as an ordinary man and woman…an ordinary family," he amended, gazing at her bulging midsection. "Think of it, Amaia…together, with our memories and every possible comfort…and eventually the Savior will come to give us a chance of returning to our true world."_

_She smiled back. His enthusiasm was infectious. If it happened as he said, their new world, however unpleasant, would still be bearable. Her smile faded, however, as a sharp pain sliced across her abdomen._

_She cried out before she could stop herself. Instantly he was kneeling in front of her again, holding her hand again. "My love, what is it?"_

_She gasped for enough air to form the words. Finally she managed to get out "The baby…"_

_His jubilant expression turned to concern in an eye blink. "Do you think…" he began. Resting his hands on her belly he was able to answer his own question. "Yes, the baby's coming."_

"_Too…early…" Amaia moaned._

"_No, no, not too early," he said soothingly. "Early, yes, but not too early. Your journey must have brought on the labor." At the terror in her eyes, he reassured, "But it's all right. You're eight months now. A baby can survive at eight months. She'll be small, but she will live."_

_All thoughts of the Dark Curse fled from his mind. He was simply an expectant father now, excited, nervous, but trying not to let her see his apprehension. Reaching through the bars, he managed to take the cloak from her shoulders and spread it out on the floor, coaxing her to lie back on it. He grabbed the poor excuse of a pillow his captors had given him and pushed it through to lie under her head. What now, he thought frantically…what now…ah, yes, water. He stood to fetch the basin of cold water his jailers provided him with once a day, glad he hadn't used any of it._

_Neither of them noticed when the ring slipped from his fingers to fall on the cloak beside her._

…

Rumpelstiltskin woke with a gasp. Tears streaked his face and continued to fall from his eyes. Oh, gods, his poor little Amaia. How she had suffered. He was glad he had awoken before he'd been forced to relive just _how _much she had suffered.

He scrubbed at his eyes impatiently and surveyed their surroundings. They were in a private room now; once she had been declared out of the woods he'd had her moved to one. The deluxe maternity suite at Storybrooke General, no less.

No one else was in the room with them for the time being. He was glad of that, and glad to see that Amaia was still sleeping peacefully. He wouldn't have wanted to alarm her with his tears. Nor would he have wanted anyone else to witness the sight of fearsome Mr. Gold awakening from a nightmare blubbering like a baby.

As he watched her, Amaia began to stir again. Stealthily, he got up and made his way to the door. She would be awake in a few moments. And there was something he wanted to do before she regained consciousness.

…

Amy opened her eyes to sun streaming through the blinds. The light was so bright she couldn't make out anything else at first. _Storm must be over_, she thought groggily.

As her eyes adjusted she made out a familiar figure hovering over her. Mr. Gold. The man she loved stood over her, and on his face was the gentlest, most loving smile she had ever seen. She was smiling back even before she saw the pink bundle he had cradled in the crook of his arm.

"Good morning, darling," he whispered. "You're just in time. There's someone here who wants to see you again…and she's quite impatient." A tiny cry sounded from the bundle.

Joy such as Amy had never felt gushed through her. She was alive. She had made it through that hellish birth…and most importantly, her precious baby had made it. She couldn't speak; there were no words for this moment. She simply held out her arms.

Mr. Gold nodded, not at her, but at someone behind her. She felt the bed begin to move and realized there was a nurse there, cranking her to an upright position. Once she was sitting up he settled the bundle into her waiting arms, and Amy looked at her daughter for the first time.

She vaguely remembered her earlier glimpse of the baby, before…whatever had happened. She had thought her beautiful then, but it had admittedly been hard to tell what with the darkness and her own lingering pain. Now, in the sunlight, she finally really saw her baby, and she realized she'd been wrong. The baby wasn't as beautiful as she'd thought.

No. She was even more beautiful.

"Ohhh," Amy breathed, gazing down at the tiny perfect face. The baby gazed back up at her, seeming to realize that she was at last in her mother's arms. The small fretful cries stilled; the tiny tensed muscles relaxed. Amy's daughter returned her stare with her own blue-gray eyes.

"Hello, little one," Amy whispered. "I'm your mommy."

The baby's lips moved, almost as though she were trying to answer. Amy could just imagine what she'd be saying, if she were able: "Hi, Mommy. It's about damn time."

She laughed a little and drank in the small face. The baby had inherited not only her eyes, she saw, but her hair as well. There it sat on top of her head like a black velvet toupee, all on top with nothing on the sides. Amy smiled at this, and at the miniature pink bow that had somehow been fastened in it.

Miniature…the baby was her in miniature. Amy had heard the expression "seeing yourself in your child", but now she fully understood it. Her daughter's face was almost a replica of her own. Reverently, Amy brought a finger to touch the teeny upturned nose, the small mouth that pursed at her touch as if in anticipation of food. She ghosted her fingertips across the cleft in the tiny chin; that hadn't come from her, but she remembered very well the identical cleft in her father's chin.

"You look like me," she whispered to her little girl. "You look like me…and your grandpa." A wave of sorrow touched her heart as she realized Joe Miller would never see his lookalike granddaughter.

A hand touched her hair. She tore her eyes away from the baby long enough to see Mr. Gold gazing down at them. He looked from her to the baby with the same infinitely tender expression.

"He knows," he said, so low only she heard him.

She nodded, smiled around the lump in her throat. Once it passed she spoke again.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?"

"Very beautiful," he agreed. "Like her mother…and, it would appear, very hungry as well."

She looked back down to see her daughter's lips moving yet again. The little face wrinkled as if in preparation for a screaming fit, and she saw another genetic legacy she'd passed on: the vertical line between her brows.

"Uh-oh," she said. "Looks like a storm's a-brewin'." She lifted the baby to her breast.

The nurse made a movement, but Gold stopped her with a simple wave of his hand. "Thank you, we can take it from here," he said. The unspoken message was clear: _Leave us._ The nurse, who hadn't spoken a word, left the room.

So it was Mr. Gold who arranged the front of her gown, who positioned her breast so the tiny mouth could find her nipple. The gestures were intimate but in no way sexual; if he recalled the other times he'd touched these same places in passion he didn't let on. For her part, she was beyond embarrassment now; she recalled the moment of the baby's birth, when it had been his hands that caught her as she slipped into the world. She was glad it was him helping her to do this now, rather than some impersonal nurse. It seemed right, somehow. Natural.

The baby latched on instantly. Amy winced slightly at the sensation of her milk coming down. "Does it hurt?" Mr. Gold asked.

She smiled. "A little," she said. "But it's a good hurt. It's hard to explain." This, at least, was something her reading had prepared her for.

They were silent for a few moments. The only sound was the soft snuffles of the baby as she fed.

"Amy," Mr. Gold said finally. "We need to talk." He cleared his throat before he continued. "I've found a family for the baby."

Amy was jolted out of her reverie. _"What?" _she asked. "But…I'm not…" Oh, God, what was he saying? Surely this hadn't been part of his plan all along!

"Please," he told her. "Hear me out." His voice was calm as ever, but his eyes were bright with apprehension and something else…was it hope?

"There's a couple," he went on before she could respond, "who lives right here in Storybrooke." He paused, waiting to see how she was taking this. She could only stare at him blankly, but he saw her arms tighten a fraction around the baby.

"They're…well, a bit of an odd couple, really," he continued. "The man is quite a bit older than the woman, and he's…not very popular. He's a businessman, of questionable ethics, but quite well-off financially. He would be able to provide for the baby's every need."

Something flickered in Amy's eyes…comprehension. "And the woman?" she asked, her voice quite calm under the circumstances. "What's she like?"

He couldn't stop the smile from breaking across his face. "Oh, she's a wonder," he said. "She's everything he isn't. She's young, quite young, but very intelligent…an old soul. And beautiful, of course. Not just on the outside…she has an inner beauty that's obvious to everyone she meets. She sees the best in everyone, even the most desperate characters. She makes them want to be better people."

"Well, why is such a paragon of womanhood with…an ethically questionable businessman, did you say?" she responded, playing along, fighting to keep her tone and face serious. "He must have other qualities that you're not mentioning. He must be damn smart himself; otherwise he wouldn't have made all that money. He must be tough, to do things most people would shrink at. He must be handsome and sophisticated, to have turned this girl's head in the first place."

He scoffed at this but she went on. "And there must be more to him than everyone else sees. Otherwise why would she have fallen in love with him? She must see what the rest of the world can't see. She must see the kindness he feels like he needs to hide…she must see the loyalty that's there. I think I know this man you're talking about. He's not someone you'd want on your bad side. But when he cares about you…"

"There's nothing he won't do for you," Rumpelstiltskin finished, his voice just a trifle husky. "I guess you do know him, after all." He swallowed hard. "Do you think he's someone you'd want to raise your child?"

She beamed at him, though her eyes were wet with tears. "I can't think of a better father for my baby," she said softly. She waited a beat before wrinkling her nose. "About this woman, though…"

He laughed before leaning forward suddenly to capture her lips in the softest kiss. "She's fine," he assured her when he pulled away. "She'll be a wonderful mother. In fact, there's only one problem with this couple I can see."

"What's that?" Amy asked, walking right into it.

"They're not married," he declared. "But they will be…if she'll have him."

Before Amy realized quite what was happening, he stood before her with a small black velvet box and a frankly terrified expression. "I can't get down on one knee," he said apologetically. "But I want to do this as traditionally as I can." He took a deep breath. "Amy Miller, will you marry me?" He opened the box to reveal a small, yet perfect round diamond set in some kind of white metal—_white gold, _her mind gibbered, _or knowing him platinum_—surrounded by tiny sapphires.

"Mr. Gold," she gasped, thunderstruck at both the beauty of the ring and the unexpected proposal. "Mr. Gold, I…"

He roared with laughter. (A nurse passing in the hallway dropped a tray of surgical instruments at the sound.) "Good God, Amy," he said when he could speak again, "I've just asked you to marry me. I helped you deliver your child. I think you can call me by my first name now."

She giggled as the absurdity of the situation hit her. "I would, if I knew it," she said. "You've never told me, you know. I don't think anyone else in town knows it either."

That was right, he remembered belatedly. Names were power. Even though it was a false name, and even though they were in a world (supposedly) without magic, he had wanted his first name kept secret. Regina had acquiesced. Everyone in this world knew him simply as "Mr. Gold". But he had to have a first name. He knew he had one. He remembered seeing it somewhere…on the deed to his house, perhaps. But what the devil was it?

Then it came to him. "It's Tom," he said. "Not Thomas. Not Tommy. Just Tom." He smirked inwardly, remembering how Regina had come up with the name. _One of the versions of your story in this world, _she'd told him all those years ago. _And much more common in this world than your true name._

"Tom," Amy said thoughtfully. "Tom Gold." She smiled. "I like it."

He liked the way it sounded on her lips. Not as good as his true name, of course, or even his nickname, which he'd loathed until she had picked it up. But that would come eventually. For now, he was content to have her know his name in this world, the name almost no one else knew.

"Well," he teased, "now that you know it, and you approve, will you favor Tom Gold with an answer?" He kept his tone light, but his heart was doing flip-flops in his chest.

Amy's face grew solemn—so solemn he began to think she was going to reject him, until he saw the glow in her eyes. "Come here, Tom Gold," she whispered.

He sat on the edge of the bed and brought his face to hers, careful not to jostle the baby. "What'll it be, Amy?" he whispered back, his eyes boring into hers. "Yes or no?"

He anticipated the answer, but actually hearing it filled him with joy. _"Yes," _she breathed. That was all she said before his lips met hers once again.

This kiss was as passionate and frankly erotic as the other had been tender and sweet. It brought back memories for both of them. For Amy, memories of the night after Graham's memorial service, when they had come so close to succumbing to their mutual desire for one another. Soon, she thought as she moaned into his mouth. Soon they would have another chance…and it wouldn't be wrong this time. It would be not only _right, _but _inevitable. _Oh, God, his mouth tasted amazing. He tasted like—she had to think for a minute—like spices. Like cloves and anise and cinnamon, with a hint of honey and a faint metallic tang underneath which she supposed was his gold teeth, but was actually his magic. In point of fact, his mouth tasted exactly the same to her as it had in their true world, although she had no way of knowing this. Later, she would realize that this also explained her Storybrooke self's fondness of chai tea: the flavor of the drink was the closest thing there was to the taste of his mouth.

Her memories were good, but his…oh, his were exquisite agony. All his half-formed memories of her came flooding back in Technicolor. He remembered it all with perfect clarity now: the smell of her skin when she'd just emerged from a bath. The feel of her hair as he'd drawn it across his face and wrapped it around his throat. The taste of that warm secret spot between her thighs where no mouth but his had ever kissed…her shock, the first time he had dared to use his mouth on her that way, shock that had quickly given way to pleasure she had never even imagined. He hadn't been the one to take her maidenhead, that was true, but he _had _been the one to truly make her a woman. _He_ had been the one to show her that the act of love was not as limited as she'd thought, and could give enjoyment rather than pain and discomfort.

Thinking this, he nibbled at her bottom lip. He was rewarded with a tiny gasp of pure pleasure. If not for the baby in her arms, there was no telling how far things would have gone between them at that moment. If not for the baby, both of them would have quite forgotten that she had just given birth and had nearly died in the process. They would have forgotten that she had a long recovery ahead of her, and that lovemaking would have to wait until she had at least started down that road.

But the baby _was _there, and chose that moment to make her presence known with an indignant squawk at being momentarily pressed between them. He drew away quickly, chuckling a bit. "Sorry, little one," he addressed the infant. "Your mother and I forgot ourselves for a moment there." The baby apparently didn't take offense. She quieted and went back to feeding.

Amy's attention focused once again on her daughter. "She needs a name," she declared.

"Weren't you planning to name her after your mother?" he asked.

She wrinkled her nose a bit. "I was," she said. "But somehow Grace just doesn't seem right for her. And it doesn't go very well with Gold. Too many hard G's." Then she smiled. "Besides, you helped bring her into this world, and you're going to be her daddy. You should have some say in the name."

He passed a gentle hand over the baby's soft dark hair. "I do have one suggestion," he said.

"And that is?"

He paused for a moment, just for dramatic effect. "Hannah," he said finally.

"Hannah," Amy repeated. Then again, bending her head to whisper it into the baby's ear. "Hannah." The child stopped nursing for just a moment and gazed up at her. "Well, she seems to like it."

"We can go with something else if you'd rather," he said. "It's just that…Hannah means 'grace' in Hebrew. It would still be a way to link her to your mother." More so than she realized now. When her memories returned, she would remember that Hannah had been her mother's name in their true world.

"Hannah," Amy repeated once more. Another smile broke across her face. "It's perfect."

"Hannah Gold," Rumpelstiltskin said, blinking hard against the tears that threatened to fill his eyes. "What about a middle name?"

Amy didn't even have to think about it. "Her middle name is Josephine," she stated firmly.

"Hannah Josephine Gold," he said. "Yes. It's perfect." Then he did another loving thing. "He would be so proud."

His darling's eyes filled with tears. "Would he?" she whispered.

"Definitely," Rumpelstiltskin assured her. Although he said it to please her, ultimately he knew it to be true. Joseph the miller would have been delighted with this tiny perfect girl-child who bore his name. If his life hadn't been cut short, Joe Miller the insurance salesman would have too (though he might not have shown it as much as his counterpart).

If he hadn't been so wrapped up in this sweet family moment he would have sensed the approaching menace. As it was, he didn't realize that Regina was in the vicinity until she was right there in the room with them.

She had entered noiselessly, probably in an attempt to give them an unpleasant jolt. But it was the queen-turned-mayor who got the jolt.

_No, _was all she could think as the basket of apples dropped from her nerveless fingers. _No…it can't be…how…_She hoped briefly, vainly, that it was a trick of the light, yet when she blinked the same image was still before her.

There stood Rumpelstiltskin. Not Mr. Gold, but _Rumpelstiltskin. _He wore Mr. Gold's suit pants and dress shirt (his tie and jacket having been discarded during the events of the previous night) but he was unmistakably the not-really-an-Imp he had been in the fairytale world. It could only mean one thing. He remembered. The curse, for him, was broken.

And the miller's daughter was gazing at him with the same nauseating expression of adoration as she always had. Dear gods, surely she didn't remember too. Between the two of them, they knew all of her machinations to keep them apart, both in Storybrooke and their true world. She wasn't particularly concerned about the miller's daughter, but she quailed inwardly at the thought of Rumpelstiltskin's wrath. For a split second Regina considered turning tail and fleeing. Then the rational part of her took over. _Even if he does know, _she thought, _even if he's regained his magic as well as his true form, what can he do to me here? _This was a public setting with countless witnesses. She was fairly certain that everyone else was still under the curse's influence. She knew instinctively that he wouldn't cause her any harm, at least right now. Not when it would undoubtedly result in his arrest and incarceration. He would do nothing to risk being separated from the girl and her child.

As for later…well, she would stop by the cemetery after she left here. She had enough of her magic stored in the mausoleum to at least put wards around her home and person. Even if he had his magic back, he wouldn't be able to harm her. And that was no one's fault but his, for after all, it had been he who taught her to protect herself against magic.

"Ah, Regina," he hailed her, and it was indescribably strange to hear Mr. Gold's brogue emitting from that creature's lips. "Come to congratulate the new mother, have you?" He flicked his gaze at the basket of apples strewn across the floor and then stared into her eyes. "Why, Madame Mayor, are you quite all right? You look as though you'd seen a ghost."

_Damn him, _she thought. With great effort, she bared her teeth in an approximation of a smile. "I'm a bit tired, I'm afraid," she replied smoothly. "The storm kept us up all night. but when I heard about poor Amy I just had to come and make sure she was all right."

He bared his teeth in a similar artificial smile. The miller's daughter, she saw, was watching the scene with interest and something like cool amusement. Was it because she too remembered everything, or was the amusement simply at "Mr. Gold" and "Mayor Mills" circling each other like wild dogs, each waiting for the other to pounce?

"Yes, poor Amy had rather a terrible time," he said. _And you and I both know who was responsible for that, dearie,_ his eyes said. "I'm sure you've heard. She nearly didn't survive."

"How dreadful," Regina cooed.

"Oh, yes," he agreed. "You just can't imagine, Madame Mayor, how devastating it is to see the person you love most slipping away right before your eyes."

Regina stiffened. _Goddamn him! _He knew very well that she had been through that exact thing not once, but twice—the first time through no fault of her own, the second time by her own hand. How dare he cast that up to her? He was going to pay for that later.

Sensing his victory, Rumple turned to the girl in the hospital bed. There was real affection in his gaze as he looked at her and the baby; for a moment he almost looked like Mr. Gold again. "But my girl's a fighter," he continued. "She pulled through—and thank God Sheriff Swan got the ambulance to us in time."

"Yes, thank God," Regina murmured, still seeing red. She gave Amy a sickeningly sweet smile. "And how are you feeling now, Amy dear?" If Amy hadn't known better, she would have believed the concern in the woman's voice was genuine.

Amy was enjoying the scene immensely. There was an undercurrent of raw violence here; she could tell they both longed to rip one another's throats out. However, she was secure in the knowledge that neither of them would stoop to that level—not here, anyway. Watching the two of them being poisonously polite to one another was amusing. She knew well enough, or thought she did, the basis of Tom's loathing for Regina; after all, she had tried to tear them apart by letting his role in Henry's adoption slip to Emma. What she didn't know was why Regina obviously loathed Tom just as much as he did her. It must have been the fire, she decided. That and his coup in getting Emma elected Sheriff. She never dreamed these had only been the latest skirmishes in the long, long war between them—a war in which blood had quite literally been spilled.

"I'm feeling quite well, Madame Mayor," the girl replied, a small smile playing about her lips. "Tom is being modest, though. He left out the important parts of the story." _Tom…who the devil was...oh yes, she remembered now. The false name she had given him. Who the devil, indeed. At least she was now almost sure that the miller's daughter hadn't regained her memory. Though, she being Rumpelstiltskin's consort, it was best not to jump to conclusions._

"He's actually the one who delivered the baby," the girl went on. "Mary Margaret was there too, as I'm sure you know. Thank goodness. I don't know what we'd have done without her. But she happened to be out of the room for a moment, and the baby came so fast…" Amy trailed off. It had been only a few minutes after that when she had literally entered the valley of the shadow. Though she knew she had a tendency towards the melodramatic, she knew she had damn near died. She _remembered. _Though she hadn't had the strength to convey it, she remembered most of what had gone on in that room after her daughter's birth.

"And then when he realized I was still bleeding," she went on, "he did everything he could to make it stop. He _did _manage to stop it. And as if that weren't enough, he gave me his own blood."

Her brand-new fiancé and the mayor stared at her with identical expressions of shock. "You remember that?" Tom asked finally.

She nodded. "It's hard to explain. I saw it all…it's like I was standing there watching it happen…" She faltered. She really didn't know how to explain it.

Her husband-to-be smiled as he put a reassuring arm about her shoulders. "Sounds like you were having an out-of-body experience, love. I've read about such things before, but I never really believed in it…until now." Though he kept his tone light, Rumpelstiltskin was cautiously jubilant at this news. It might be, it just might be that Amaia too was regaining some of the magic he had passed on to her. And if that was the case, then surely her memory couldn't be far behind.

Even if that wasn't the case, it was more proof to him that this so-called magic-less world indeed possessed its own brand of magic. Either way he considered this latest development a point in his favor.

Regina had reached the same conclusions in her on mind, but she was far from jubilant. It was bad enough that Rumpelstiltskin was now fully aware and apparently regaining his powers; now it looked as though the bit of his magic he had transferred into the girl had awakened in her as well. At least she could now be sure that the girl was still under the curse; if she had been aware of her power and remembered who she really was, Regina knew she would have done something to her the moment she laid eyes on her. She would have taken some form of vengeance on the woman who had tried to separate her from her lover, her child, and her very life. It likely wouldn't have been anything that could truly harm her, since the girl's magic was nowhere near the level of the Dark One who had given it to her, but she would have done _something._ Then, too, if she had known, Rumpelstiltskin could also have unleashed his vengeance…and his powers were far more lethal.

When the girl regained her memories—and she would; Regina knew Rumpelstiltskin would see to it one way or another—the onetime Evil Queen of the Fairytale Realm was going to be in very deep shit.

_But I won't let it go that far,_ she vowed to herself. _I'll take care of them both before that can happen. _Even if they possessed magic once again, well, she still had hers. Even if she hadn't, there were ways to deal with this new problem that didn't require magic. She allowed herself a brief vision of the Dark One and his whore lying dead in his palatial estate, the victims of a break-in gone wrong…or, better still, a murder-suicide. Perhaps poor Amy would develop postpartum psychosis, murdering her lover before coming back to herself enough to realize what she'd done, then taking her own life in grief and despair. Or maybe _he _would be the one to kill _her_—yes, she liked that better. She would discover yet another of his unsavory activities; they would quarrel, the argument quickly turning violent; overwhelmed with rage, unable to stop himself, he would—Regina had to cut the thought off quickly before it caused her to smile.

And the best part would be that no one in Storybrooke would question it. "I knew there was something wrong there," they'd all say. "There was something off about that relationship right from the beginning." Even the ones who had grudgingly come to see that the strange love affair between the pawnbroker and the young woman was genuine would reverse their opinions once again. And the most delicious irony of all was that Rumpelstiltskin would go down in Storybrooke history as the killer of the woman he had once risked his life to save.

As delightful as these thoughts were she had to put them aside for now. She had never been entirely sure if his magic extended to reading minds or not. Once, many, many years ago, she had asked him point-blank if he was capable of this; he had merely giggled and refused to give her a straight answer. Best to concentrate on something else for now.

Her gaze centered on the baby, who had finished feeding and was drowsing peacefully in her mother's arms. "What a lovely little girl," Regina said.

Rumpelstiltskin's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but the words were genuine. The baby was, indeed, lovely. As she looked at the child Regina felt a feeling she hadn't experienced since an infant Henry had been placed in her arms for the first time. If she had cared to examine it, she would have realized that it was the closest thing to love she had felt since she had sacrificed her father to enact the curse. If she were truly honest with herself, she would also realize that this feeling paled in comparison to the love she had once felt, many years ago, when she wasn't an Evil Queen or a corrupt Mayor, but simply a young girl, abused, damaged, but still believing in the promise of a happy ending.

"May I?" she asked, holding out her arms. It was on the tip of Rumpelstiltskin's tongue to simply retort, "No". He _had _seen her thoughts, in a way; though he couldn't tell exactly what one was thinking, he could read the essence of their thoughts easily. Hers had been dark and murderous until only a moment ago.

But not so now. He saw wonderingly that the evil thoughts had been replaced with something like affection—affection, and a sort of wistfulness. It was almost as if he were looking upon the ghost of that long-ago girl, whose spark of goodness had burned as long as it could before finally being extinguished. That girl was gone now, he reminded himself. What remained was a threat, a danger, and would have to be destroyed eventually…but the glimpse of that long-ago girl stilled his tongue.

Instead he turned to Amaia and said, "It's up to you, darling."

Amy looked none too pleased at the thought of letting the Mayor hold the baby, but as she looked intently at the woman's face her own softened a bit. She saw the same thing he did, Rumpelstiltskin knew. Of course, without her memories she couldn't properly understand it, but she saw it. Regina would not harm the child. She was undoubtedly planning to do some sort of harm to himself and Amaia, and would make her move sooner rather than later, but today was not that day. If anything, allowing her to hold the child for a moment might buy them some time.

Naturally Amy didn't know this, but the flicker of genuine emotion on the woman's face had moved her. "Of course," she said, forcing a polite smile.

Regina took the infant carefully, noting but not remarking on the diamond-and-sapphire ring, obviously new, that sparkled on the fourth finger of Amy's left hand. She didn't even notice the far simpler ring on her right hand. As she settled the tiny girl into her arms, all thought of rings fled from her mind. "Oh, my," she murmured to the pink bundle. "Oh, you're a pretty little thing, aren't you?"

The baby squirmed a little in her embrace but didn't cry. Its tiny eyelids fluttered open briefly before closing again. Yes, this was just how she had felt the day Henry had come to her. She knew it wasn't the powerful rush of love a mother should feel for a child, but it was _something. _

"Her name is Hannah," Amy announced from the bed. "Hannah Josephine Gold."

So they had named the baby for her dead grandparents. How sweet. Of course, she would change it once the baby was in her custody. Raven would be pretty, and fitting with that dark hair. Or perhaps Sophia. Anything but Cora.

For she intended to have this baby. In this world, that had been her plan all along. Her original plan had been to take Amy in once she discovered she was pregnant. She knew she wasn't the girl's favorite person in the world, but she also knew that she had very few places to turn. She had intended to take the girl in and dispose of her once the baby was born, explaining to the townsfolk that Amy had turned the baby over to her before leaving town. Of course, with the curse she wouldn't have actually been able to send the girl out of Storybrooke, but there was the secret ward in the hospital's basement…

That plan hadn't worked out, what with "Mr. Gold" stepping in before she was able. That was an odd thing, she mused as she cooed soft nonsense to the infant. Even without his memories, with no knowledge of their past relationship, he had somehow been drawn to the girl. Odder still that she had responded. Regina wanted to dismiss this as the pawnbroker's merely seeing another opportunity to make a quick buck, wanted to dismiss the girl's resulting fondness as simple gratitude, but she was forced to admit to herself that it had likely been something far more powerful.

So she had revised the plan: she would convince "Mr. Gold" to give her the child. She knew full well that at the beginning he had had every intention of selling the child to the highest bidder. But she had waited too long. By the time she approached him about "adopting" the baby, he had once again fallen in love with the girl. This turn of events had surprised her as much as it had when it occurred in the Fairytale Realm, though she supposed in retrospect she should have foreseen it. If they had found their way to one another again, it was to be expected that they would once more fall in love.

It was then that she stepped up her plan in earnest. She had managed to drive "Mr. Gold" and the girl apart, using the simple truth as a most effective wedge. But another unexpected wrench had been thrown into the works when "Joe Miller" had decided to reconcile with his daughter. If the man had succeeded, she knew the girl would have moved back into her father's home and raised the baby with his help. That had been another strange thing: though the man's heart had been safely locked in her vault for the past twenty-eight years, he had still suffered pangs of conscience there at the end. It was eerily reminiscent of what had happened to Graham; it was a good thing she had dealt with both of them immediately. If she had hesitated, she suspected she might have gone to the vault to discover both of their hearts gone, once again in their respective rightful places. It shouldn't be possible, but nor should the second love of the Dark One and the miller's daughter, not to mention that of the prince and her dear ex-stepdaughter.

Luckily she had moved quickly enough to get both the erstwhile Huntsman and the former miller out of the way. Although in the case of "Joe Miller" it had still been too late; though he was gone, he had left his daughter with the means to raise her child comfortably. There had been no further need for the girl to consider giving up her baby. Regina was stymied. In a last-ditch effort, she had even tried to bring about the girl's death in childbirth. But the minute she walked through the door of the hospital room she had seen why that plan had failed.

Now, with the girl alive and once again reunited with Rumpelstiltskin, it seemed to be a hopeless cause. But she knew better. Regina still had one ace up her sleeve. With the tragic deaths of her mother and adoptive father, the baby would be orphaned. Regina's path to taking the child would be clear. And best of all, her two biggest potential threats would be eliminated as well.

It was perfect.

Regina's thoughts were interrupted by a sudden howl from the baby. As if she sensed the thoughts of the woman holding her, the child burst into abrupt, furious screams.

In a flash Rumpelstiltskin was beside them, nearly snatching the baby from Regina's arms. "There, there, love," he said soothingly, rocking the infant. "It's all right, precious. Papa's got you now."

Instantly the baby quieted. The round blue eyes seemed to focus on his face. She stared up at the man who would act as her father with something like fascination. The rosebud mouth opened slightly, and to everyone's astonishment a coo issued from the throat that had been screeching only moments before.

It was Rumpelstiltskin's turn to experience a feeling he hadn't for a very long time—not since the day, in another time and place, that he had held his newborn son for the first time. Unlike Regina's vague affection and longing, this was a powerful rush of love that was almost visceral. _Mine, _he thought as he comforted the baby. _Mine._

It was more than he had dared hope for. He had vowed to treat the child as his own. He had known he would love the child, if for no other reason than because she belonged to Amaia. But in the back of his mind he had wondered if he would truly be able to accept the child as his own. Now he knew.

The child was not of his blood. But somehow, inexplicably, it was still his. Perhaps it was his love for Amaia that made it so. Perhaps it was that he had been present at the child's birth, had in fact been the one to see her into the world. Whatever the reason, he knew as clearly as he had ever known anything that the child of his love had become his child, too.

"Yes, Papa's got you," he cooed. Amy, who had reached for the child when she began screaming, let her arms drop. A small but truly radiant smile touched her lips as she watched her fiancé cradle her—_their_—daughter.

Regina wanted to vomit at the scene. She couldn't resist curling her lip just the tiniest bit. "'Papa'?" she queried, her tone pleasant but faintly mocking.

Rumpelstiltskin favored her with a smirk before turning his attention back to the baby. "That's right," he said, continuing to rock the precious bundle.

"I see," Regina said. "I didn't realize the rumors about you being the child's actual father were true."

This time he glared at her. "You know very well they're not," he said, his tone mild so as not to alarm the baby. "But you of all people should know that blood doesn't matter."

_Damn! _He had zapped her again.

Amy spoke now. "He's her father in all the ways that count," she said. "He watched her grow inside me. He was the first one to feel her kick. He even saved our lives." That jolted Regina a bit, until she realized that the girl was referring to her premature labor scare the previous November. "He literally brought her into this world. And he's the only father she'll ever know. Even if we weren't going to raise her together, he'd still be more her father than the man I made her with."

"But we are going to raise her together," Rumpelstiltskin added. "And I plan to formally adopt her, of course, after the wedding. Cover all the bases, you know." His tender smile turned wolfish. "As a matter of fact, you can handle that for us."

This caught Regina off guard. "I…I…what?"

His grin grew wider. In that moment he was every inch the Dark One, the irredeemably evil being she had once believed him to be. To Amy, he looked more like the sinister pawnbroker she had once thought him than he had since the day they met.

"Well, you are the mayor of our little town," he shrugged, allowing the slightest trace of his former lilt to creep into his voice. "As such, you're licensed to perform marriage ceremonies. Who better than you to officiate as we take our vows?"

He couldn't be serious. Except, she saw with a sinking heart, he was. Though his mouth was smiling, his eyes were grim. He was going to force her to do this, for no other reason than that the thought was anathema to her. Without laying a hand on her, without casting a single spell, he was going to punish her for all she had done to tear them apart. And she knew it would only be the start of his revenge.

"Madame Mayor," he said, his tone every bit as theatrical as it had been in their true world, "won't you do Amy and me the honor of marrying us?" She knew she was trapped even before his near hiss of "Please."

She knew she had no choice. "Of course," she bit out, glaring daggers at him.

"Wonderful," he smirked. Then he seemed to remember there was someone else to consider in all this. He turned to his bride-to-be. "If that's all right with you, my darling?"

For a brief moment Regina hoped the girl would let her off the hook. But her hopes were quickly dashed as Amaia shrugged. "Fine with me," she said. "What choice do we have, really? It's her or the minister, and I haven't been to church in years. I doubt he'd do it."

Rumpelstiltskin doubted that. With a large enough bribe or a dire enough threat, he suspected that Reverend Perrault would have been happy to perform the ceremony. But this was too good of an opportunity to pass up. If Amaia had seemed truly unhappy with the idea, he would have abandoned it; but he sensed that she, too, saw the delicious irony. After everything the woman had done to them, even gentle, kind-hearted Amaia wanted to see the Mayor squirm.

"Well, then," Regina said briskly, wanting to get it over and done with. "I don't have the required paperwork with me, of course, but I can return this afternoon and—"

"No," Amy interrupted.

Had she changed her mind after all? Regina gloated inwardly while Rumple's heart sank. Did she mean she had changed her mind about marrying him?

"I want a real wedding," Amy went on. "Not a hospital room rush job." Now Regina's heart sank while Rumpelstiltskin's rose.

"I see," she said neutrally. "Well, then, let me know when you've decided on a date. I'll make sure I'm available." She glanced at her watch without even noting the time. "And now I really have to be going." She was halfway out the door before she remembered to utter a chilly "Congratulations".

When she was gone Rumple looked nervously at Amaia, worried he'd overstepped himself. Though she'd gone along with him while Regina was in the room, now he would find out how she truly felt about being married by their common enemy. He wouldn't blame her if she ripped him a new one with her tongue.

But Amaia only grinned and hummed a few bars of the "Imperial March" from _Star Wars. _"Every time I see her enter or leave a room I get that in my head," she announced. He grinned back with humor as well as relief. She wasn't upset after all.

She couldn't hold back her giggles any longer. "God, did you see her face?" she exclaimed. "When you asked her to marry us, I thought she was going to shit a brick!"

He laughed. "A vulgar but accurate statement, my love," he teased. He returned the baby to her before settling in the chair at her bedside. "But let's talk about this. I should have asked you first. Are you truly all right with the idea of her performing the ceremony?"

She considered this as she rocked the baby.

"We can have someone else do it if you prefer," he said. "What about Dr. Hopper? I doubt he's licensed to perform marriages, but perhaps he could be temporarily ordained. Or we could at least speak to Reverend Perrault, get an idea of whether he'd be willing or not."

"No," she said finally. "It may be awful of me, but I like the idea of Regina marrying us. After she tried to break us up, I can't help but think she deserves to have her nose rubbed in it a little."

"Well said," he commented, stifling a laugh.

"I would like Dr. Hopper to be there, though," she said thoughtfully. "And Ruby and Granny and Ashley, of course. And Emma, and Mary Margaret…"

"We'll invite the whole town, if that's you want," he said impulsively. "You can have the biggest wedding Storybrooke's ever seen, if you like." Hell, she could have the biggest wedding _Maine _had ever seen, if she wanted that. He wanted her to have whatever her heart desired. Gods, he loved this woman.

She shook her head. "No, I don't want a huge splashy wedding," she said decisively. "I've never wanted that. Even when I was a little girl I never wanted the frilly white dress and twelve bridesmaids and all that hoo-ha. I just want something small, simple but beautiful."

"And you'll have that," he promised.

They spent most of the rest of day planning. In the end, they had agreed on a ceremony at the mayor's office in two weeks' time (Doc had said she would be able to be up and around by then, although she would still have to take it easy). The only guests would be Ruby and Granny Woods, Ashley and Sean, Emma, Mary Margaret, Archie Hopper, Marco, and Henry Mills. And Hannah, of course.

It was a quiet day. There were few visitors. Mary Margaret had come in soon after Regina had left; she had been delighted to hear of the upcoming nuptials. Emma, busy getting the town up and running again after last night's storm, had poked her head in. While she hadn't been as excited as MM over the news of their engagement, she had offered her congratulations.

Granny, Ruby and Ashley had come together, the diner being closed for the day due to storm damage. They had fussed over the baby, exclaiming that she was an absolute doll, the very image of Amy, and had all taken a turn holding her. Hannah had gone placidly from one set of arms to the next; there had been no more screaming fits. Amy and Tom had privately agreed that, even at one day old, their daughter was already an excellent judge of character.

None of the three were surprised when told of the upcoming wedding. Granny wasn't particularly overjoyed, of course, though she was nowhere near as horrified as she would have been a few months or even a few days earlier. She admitted to herself grudgingly that Amy seemed very happy. Whether that happiness would last remained to be seen. Ruby and Ashley were more enthusiastic, although Ruby was disappointed that they weren't going to "do the whole David Tutera thing".

Everyone else stayed away for the time being. Either they were trying to give the new family some privacy or they were busy dealing with the aftermath of the storm. Tomorrow would be the day everyone came to meet Storybrooke's newest citizen. That was fine with Amy; she wanted to get a good night's sleep before the parade of visitors.

Tom had left briefly while Amy visited with her friends, to get an overnight bag. He wouldn't hear Amy's suggestion that he sleep at his own house. Truthfully, she hadn't pushed the issue too hard. They had been separated for a long time. She wanted him near her from here on out.

He apparently felt the same way; when the nurse on duty offered him a rollaway cot he shook his head. "No, thank you," he said, politely enough but in a tone that brooked no argument.

So it was that they spent the first night of their engagement in a single hospital bed, Hannah right beside them in a small plastic crib after Doc declared there was no need for her to return to the incubator. Amy could reach easily over the bed to touch her daughter, and she did, often.

It wasn't nearly as comfortable as their bed at home, Rumpelstiltskin thought, but the enforced closeness bothered him not one bit. He could happily stay like this forever, he thought as he lay with Amaia's head on his chest, his fingers playing with her dusky hair. His love in his arms and their daughter beside them…he could think of worse places to be.

Half asleep, Amaia murmured something.

"What was that, darling?" he said softly.

"So many sides," she repeated drowsily. "There are so many sides to you. I think I've seen them all today. First the lover. Then, with Regina, the scary pawnbroker. And with Hannah, the devoted father. Which one is the real you?"

He thought about that for a moment before answering her with the truth:

"None of them…and all of them."

She said just one more word before sleep finally overtook her.

"Good."

**I am so, so sorry it's taken me this long to update…it's been the summer from hell for me. When I had time to write, the words came very slowly and with great difficulty. Luckily things seem to be looking up for now. At least my muse finally stayed in one place long enough to help me finish this chapter. I won't promise a quick update, but as you've probably guessed the next chapter is going to be happy and so fluffy as to be nearly vomit-inducing. I seem to have an easier time with those.**

**One reason I had such a hard time with this chapter is that I felt like Rumple was losing his edge. He was getting way too OOC even for a madly-in-love new father. Good thing Regina showed up and brought back the snarky Dark One we all know and love. Another reason I had trouble is the shifting of names. I'm sorry. I know the constant back-and-forth is confusing—hell, it confuses me. But it's really the only way I can show the different points of view right now.**

**A couple of things I forgot to mention last chapter: I borrowed the song "If Only" from Louis Sachar's book _Holes _(one of my favorites to this day). And I got the inspiration for Amy's post-delivery hemorrhaging scene from another book, _The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes _by Diane Chamberlain. Of course I got the "Imperial March" in this chapter from _Star Wars_, and have so credited it. (I also slipped in a tiny _Merlin _reference—the Sam Neill miniseries. A pair of Rumple's leather pants to anyone who spotted it!)**

**As we all know, I don't own anything but my OCs, Amy/Amaia and baby Hannah.**

**And once again I apologize for the delay. I really appreciate everyone who's read this story, alerted it, favorited it, and especially reviewed it! I've tried to keep my promise to leave a few reviews myself on other stories, but it seems like every time I decide to try the system is "shitting the bed" as my kid brother so elegantly puts it. But let me say here that Twyla-Mercedes, Bad Faery, and Sapsorrow86 are the best and most prolific Rumple AU writers out there! And Awesome Fat Kitty has done it again: though I'll be sad to see "Hands On Me" end, I'm loving her latest, "Under the Sea".**

**TTFN! Next up: fluffy wedding goodness!**


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